The new-build six-story Meliá Innside hotel in Newcastle, northern England, is cycle-friendly. There’s a bike hanging in reception, a rental hook-up for guests at the Cycle Hub a little further up the Quayside can be easily arranged, and, so long as you don’t mind going nowhere, you can ask for a Peloton Bike+ in your room.
We had the top-floor corner Townhouse Suite with a cracking panoramic along the Tyne, and as the sunset darkened into night, I got myself a workout-with-a-view.
The in-room Peloton is part of the Spanish hotel chain’s self-care drive. There are also new-for-2024 Peloton Suites at the Meliá hotels in Liverpool and Manchester.
I live in Newcastle—and on my bike—so it was a bit of a busman’s holiday. Still, I’ve never ridden for 30 minutes with the same riverside view, and, extending my time going nowhere fast, I also enjoyed capturing a time-lapse video of Newcastle’s buzzing Quayside.
Had I the inclination, I could also have cranked out some cardio, strength, and yoga Peloton workouts via one of the two Smart TVs in the suite. Every Innside room has a yoga mat, and every Innside hotel’s gym has a Peloton Bike+; placing one in the room was convenience on stilts.
We arrived—and left—by bike, and it was no sweat for one of our bikes to be wheeled away to a secure room. I schlepped my folding bike to the room and placed it close to the static machine. I’d not ridden a Peloton before, and, of course, I shipped in my Spandex so I could look the part. (Not that anyone was looking—the hotel has an uninterrupted view.)
Even if I’d not been riding, I’d have enjoyed the history-soaked panorama— the view takes in the eponymous “new” castle (built in 1080), the Robert-Stephenson-designed High-Level bridge, a 16th century stone warehouse (it’s now an oak-beamed Weatherspoon’s pub, with the oaks felled in 1514), the 1876 Swing Bridge on the site of the Roman crossing of the river, and the 1920s Tyne Bridge, symbol of Newcastle. Squint, and you can even see the modern Millennium cycle and pedestrian bridge.
Beneath the Tyne Bridge, and spottable from the suite, is Backyard Bike Shop, a recent winner of BikeBiz.com’s bike shop of the year. (I popped in for some tech advice, naturally.)
Meliá Hotels International—listed in the IBEX 35 Spanish stock market index—was Europe’s most sustainable hotel company in 2020, according to the SAM Corporate Sustainability Assessment. The group has ranked seventh in the Wall Street Journal’s list of the 100 most sustainably managed companies in the world.
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