Exercise Bike Cycle Bike for Home Use Cycling Stationary

This is my first experience with an exercise bike. I recently had a stroke and returned to the UK after living overseas for some years where I owned and rode a bike to and from work daily, and so this was an ideal way for me to exercise. I’m finding this a pretty good way to be physically active, although it’s not perfect. A really good point is how quiet it is – I can be doing some fair speed but my wife has no complaints about noise as we both watch a film, and it’s good and steady so I’m not bothering downstairs either. It has a pretty sturdy construction – I’m on the edge of its weight capacity and it makes some alarming creaking noises at times but has held together so far. The little wheels for trundling it around are very handy. While the fact it resets its mode when you stop for 2 minutes is annoying , the screen which displays various info is useful and is at least easy to reset.

However, the main issue I have with it is the handlebars. The bull-horn shape is nothing like everyday bicycles, resembling specialised racing bicycles, and even on the tallest position is set very low, forcing you to lean way forward and grip at an unnatural angle, especially if you want to use the pulse sensors; it looks as if it was originally designed to be adjustable in angle, which would have helped, but is welded at the angle it sits at. The result is that I must constantly change how I hold it in order to keep my balance and my grip, which is not great. I am also not able to use the toeclips due to the strap-like design, but that’s not such a big deal. The saddle is not great but it looks like any saddle would fit, and I cannot understand why the seat tube is so over-engineered and not just a standard bicycle seat tube, but this doesn’t really detract from the user experience, just makes it heavier to move about.