Anyone know anything about exercise bikes?
 

I meant to get one after I did my leg in, but never did... My mum and dad asked me what I wanted for my christmas, and I had no idea so that's what popped out :) But it's not a bad idea... But I know nothing about exercise bikes at all, so what makes a good one? I suppose it should be quiet, and well built, and have a few different options for settings and resistance and timed runs and that? Other than that, can I just go to Argos? :)

The best ones are those based on air resistance (by far!) - the type that have a big fan as the front wheel. Schwinn (think thats right spelling) are one of the best but cost a bit - but cheaper ones ok for home use. If your leg is still dodgy any other type of resistance such as bands that tighten around the wheel can be quite severe so need to be careful with those. Why a bike? You might find that rowing (if done properly) is about the best all round exercise but again the air resistance ones are best. Eliptical cross trainers also good. Try to avoid anything with hydraulic resistance :smt018 , their movement isn't consistent so the exercise is flawed (basically naff) - lot of effort for little gain. And forget those mini stepper things.

Rowers often have fold away facility - probably cos thats how most of them end up!! :lol:

Is your leg back to normal? What do you actually want to achieve, general fitness? :)

i bought a set of rollers instead of a bike and then i can use my own bike which fits me instead of an ill fitting exercise bike. good cycle shops sell them

Well... yeah. Wind resistance ones are alright. I used one for the really poxy winter days when I was racing.
You just bolt your bike on, and spin away.
You can also get ones where you are forcing a series of magnets against each other, creating resistance. This is less noisy. Ie, when I was spining in the room, well, I was banned from training in my room. Cause, I made a lot of noise. So I trained in the back garden...

I still have that trainer at home...

A rower machine might be the man. You do get a lot of movements done in that. Any of those spinner bikes that you see in gyms would be good. You have almost no resistance, you just have to keep your legs moving.

Just a note, it might not apply to you, but I had to be very careful doing anything that increased power in my legs. Ie "normal" exercise bikes, weights etc. It just made my legs too strong too fast, and it threw things out of balance.
I suppose this is not normal, since there seems to be loads of people not having screwed up legs from them being too powerful (as opposed to... emm durable), but you dont want this.

You want a trainer that you can set up to have very very little resistance, and that the strength it derived from lots of light movements, not a few strong ones.

Does any of that make sense ??? :oops:

I don't know if you live in a detached house or a flat ... but these things are pretty noisy ... your neighbors might not be too impressed ;)

Bearing in mind how much a decent one would set you back, it is probably more cost effective just to join a local gym for a few months?!?! You will have access not only to high quality bikes, but all sorts of weights/machines that will help isolate and build up whichever muscle groups you are after, at whatever pace you are after. There will also be some sports trainers there that can tailor make an exercise program to your needs and they will know the best ways to build you back up to full strength. 8)

Oh and there will probably be some scantily clad, sweaty, heaving bosom 'eye candy' there to help keep you motivated too ... something that may or may not be available free of charge at home?!!? :lol:

^--- that'll be a turbo trainer, heard a lot of good reports about these. Cheap as chips too

Pete

There's absolutely no chance at all I'd go to a gym regularily, but if I had a bike in the house I'd actually use it... I'm thinking bike for space reasons, but also because I want to get back into cycling and right now, I'm rubbish at it. I can walk around more or less normally, and that, but I can't cycle properly and I can't really ride well enough to get to the point where I can at the moment. Not least because it's raining :)

Not got the space in the house for a turbo trainer and the bike, but I reckon I could put that in the garage easy enough. I'm rather attracted to the idea of having it in front of the TV, though...

Buy another tv for the garage and feed it thru. Ta da. :)

I broke my leg badly and used an exercise bike to get back into shape. The main things are smoothness and a good bit of inertia. Get one with a heavy flywheel.

Whatever you get you'll be bored out of your skull within 5 minutes. Hence the number of exercise bikes in the local classifieds :P

Much better to get a road bike and if you're not up to it yet, just go round the block a couple of times and build up from there.

Suppose he could watch softcore p0rn on it too making it equal to going down the gym!?!? :D