Spinning bikes...

Nobody rides spinning bikes here?

Well, I tried just about every spinning (and similar) bike model available "on the floor for testing" in Sydney back in May. Unfortunately that collection didn't include Star Trac, Johnny G or Kettler, which you mentioned.

But out of those I did try, the best by far (in my opinion) was from Pulse Fitness. Just no comparison! I tried the 225, but probably would have bought the 227 because I'm a geek and like gadgets. The company's web page at http://www.pulsefitness.com/prodgroup.html doesn't really tell you much (don't you just hate it when they "improve" a web site and get rid of all the useful stuff?); the link to the brochure is http://www.pulsefitness.com/pdfs/gcycling.pdf. The 225F model in the downloadable brochure is slightly different to the plain 225 I tried; it must be "improved" too.

I had expected something called the Fitness Bike to be good, but I was quite disappointed (enough so that I think the shop must not have set it up properly, but I didn't bother chasing it up).

Most other models were pretty similar to that Reebok you mentioned: some were pretty clearly just badge-engineered, others varied to relatively small degrees, but all of that type felt fairly similar.

Anyway, in the end I bought a mag trainer, a set of rollers, and a cheapie secondhand bike to use on them. All up those 3 items cost about AU$1000, which was about the same as most of the common-or-garden variety spinner bikes in Australia (they ranged from AU$900 to AU$1200). The Pulse models were AU$1895 for the 225, and AU$2095 for the 227, for comparison (I still have the brochure and the quote, because I still might buy one some time!). Others were mostly between those prices, but closer to the higher end of the range.

(And the prices aren't super-inflated if you compared them to some of the fancier stationary bikes... the supposedly gym-quality models go for AU$2500-5000! :eek:)

I do most of my riding on a Proform recumbent bike it inclines to allow dumbell press and curls. I used hanger iron to tapcon it to my cellar floor under my lat machine and put a belt on it. When I get in a rut I go to ifit.com and choose a level 3 50 minute workout but ussually I just do minimal cardio of 17 minutes at 85% HR. It was the display model last year at Sears and I bought it for $175.00 it usually sells for more than $300. One of the foot straps was missing but I replaced them with velcro. It did need adjusting to get the magnet as close to the wheel as possible without touching at resistance 10. I have found software for it that allows you to design your own workout on your laptop without having to go online it really makes it interesting.

NJ-Rider-NJ said:

Nobody rides spinning bikes here?

I decided to buy a spinner and did quite a bit of looking and riding them. I decided upon and bought a Johnny G Spinner Pro, and have been very happy with it. I also really like the Lemond Revmaster, but it is more expensive and I think Lemond has turned into quite a jackass as of late, so I have a problem supporting him. One thing I did find out is that the Johnny G bikes (by StarTrac) are identical to the Schwinn units (at least when I was looking) but the Schwinn were considerably more expensive. I haven't had any experience with the Reebok unit, so I can't comment. Good luck.