Getting an Exercise Bicycle

It is usually around the New Year that we begin noticing how fat we have become. The holiday season goes very well for me, in fact so well, that towards the draw of the New Year, I often have to deal with a spare tire around my midriff. It is at times like these that I should be getting an exercise bicycle.

An exercise bicycle, is commonly used by people seeking to improve their fitness and cardiovascular health. In this regard, bike exercise is especially helpful for those with arthritis of the lower limbs and who are unable to pursue sports such as running that involve more impact to joints such as the knees. Furthermore, since cycling can be used as a form of transportation, there can be less demand for self-discipline to maintain the exercise because of the practical purpose of the activity

First Exercise Bike

I got my first exercise bicycle over a decade ago. It was a fairly simple piece of machinery. It looked like one half of a regular bike. And it was mechanically operated, with a simple belted-up gear contraption that you tightened by hand as you went along. I spent more time staring at that first exercise bike than actually using it for what it was meant and it slowly but steadily faded away from my memory. Just after the Christmas festivities into the New Year, when there is clearly the need for bike exercise, I decided to get myself another exercise bike.

You see the exercise bike I used to own was an antique now, doomed to a musty life in some fitness museum. The new age exercise bikes were radically different beings. For one thing, the word ‘simplicity’ or the phrase ‘ease of use’ seemed to have been thrown out of the window when these new age exercise bikes were designed. None, I repeat, none of them were simple to understand, much less operate. There were exercise bikes with motorized resistance, bikes with magnetic resistance, even more exercise bikes with wind load resistance and even friction-free resistance! What ever happened to the plain old resistance belt? Anyways, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Seems most of the new age exercise bikes needed to be plugged up to the power source as they came with in-built computers which monitored everything from your heart rate to the rate of your toe-nail eroding on the tread (I’m kidding!). Anyways, they needed a power source to run the array of sensors that the exercise bike employed to monitor various bodily functions and rates. Most of them had a digital display LCD, electronic monitor charts for time, speed, distance and calories, pulse monitors, heart-rate monitors and a whole range of allied equipment.

This made me wonder. If I was going to spend all my time hooking up these allied monitors to various extremities of my body, where was I ever going to find the time to actually get on to the exercise bike and… exercise?

Types of Exercise Bicycle

In recent years, many new stationary bikes have appeared, including those in recumbent positions, "spinning machines" which are stationary bikes built for spinning classes and X-Bikes with lateral resistance in the handle bars. Often, exercise bikes have various methods of increasing the resistance to the pedals moving (and thus, the intensity of the exercise), to provide for varied training. These include magnets, fans, and friction mechanisms.Some models allow the user to pedal backwards, allowing them to exercise antagonist muscles which are not exercised in forward pedaling.

Uses of a Exercise Bicycle

An exercise bike has been a long time favorite in the rehab clinics because of the low-impact cardiovascular exercise it provides. It allows you to perform safe, as well as an effective cardiovascular exercise. The low-impact movement involved in operating an exercise bike does not put much stress on your joints and does not involve herky-jerky motions that some other fitness equipment may require.

The latest use of indoor stationary bikes is as an option for beating obesity. A video game console has been adapted to display a "game" of a cyclist in a race^.  The in-game speed of the rider is determined by the actual movement of the pedals on a stationary exercise bicycle, therefore, providing an added incentive for hard exercise in the form of competition.