A free indoor ride in your browser: how far Moveee Indoor gets you for nothing

"Free indoor cycling" usually comes with an asterisk. A free tier that locks the workouts you actually want, a trial that expires the week your motivation finally shows up, or a "free" app that quietly assumes you own a gaming PC to run it. So it's worth being precise about what free really means before you rearrange your winter around it.

Here's the honest version for Moveee Indoor — which we build, so treat this as the interested party it is. On the software side you pay nothing, and there's a real reason for that: it's young, it's in alpha, and it's free while it is. The only money in the equation is hardware — and it's hardware most people who train indoors already have.

What's actually free, and what you still need

The clean way to think about it is two columns. Everything on the left costs you nothing. Everything on the right is the part that isn't software — and for a lot of riders, it's already sitting in the garage.

Notice what's not on the right: a subscription, a launcher, a download, or a spare 30GB of disk. There's nothing to install and nothing to keep updated. You open a browser tab, pair over Bluetooth, and ride.

Everything you get for £0 on the software

It's fair to be sceptical when something costs nothing. So here, plainly, is the whole thing you're getting — not a demo of it. The world is real: it renders your own saved routes in 3D from OpenStreetMap and real elevation data, so you ride the actual roads your route follows — the same church, the same bridge, the same climb. Off-route free riding and event recon are included.

Two more things worth knowing, because they matter on a free platform especially: your recording is backed up as you ride, so a dropped Bluetooth connection or a closed tab can't erase a session — and there's an Explore mode that rolls you through the world with no trainer at all, if you just want to see what your routes look like before committing to anything.

How that compares to paying every month

The point of contrast is the subscription. Most virtual-cycling and structured-training apps run on a monthly fee, and they're good — genuinely — but they're a recurring line on your card. These figures are indicative and move around, so check before you commit; they're here to show the shape of it, not the exact number.

To be fair to the paid apps: a monthly fee buys polish, a decade of content, and — in Zwift's case especially — a crowd. There are thousands of riders online at any hour to race and chase, and that's the one thing no free, young platform can hand you. If riding with people is the reason you train indoors, that's worth real money, and we'd say so. Our round-up of the best Zwift alternatives is honest about where each one wins.

The catch, stated plainly

"Free while in alpha" is doing real work in that sentence. Moveee Indoor is young. There are rough edges. It's Chrome or Edge only, there's no racing scene yet, and free now is not a promise of free forever — pricing may change once it grows up. What we will say is that the riders who help us test it at this stage will be looked after when that day comes. You're getting the whole platform for nothing; in return you're riding something that's still finding its feet.

So what does a free indoor setup actually cost?

Add it up and the answer is: whatever the trainer costs, and nothing else. If you already own a smart trainer or a power meter, your first ride is genuinely £0 — pair it, pick a route, go. If you don't, the trainer is the whole budget, and it's worth buying well; our smart trainer buying guide covers what matters and what's oversold. Put the money you'd have spent on a year of subscriptions toward a quieter trainer and a good fan instead.

Then open Moveee Indoor in Chrome or Edge, pair over Bluetooth, and ride one of your own roads. It's free while in alpha, it runs in your browser with nothing to install, and the ride counts toward your Moveee training plan just like any outdoor one. The only way to find out how far "free" gets you is to clip in.