I used to have one of those magnetic ‘turbo trainers’ before I bought my exercise bike. I got on okay with it, but it was one which required removing the front wheel of the bike and attaching the forks of the bike to the stand. That wasn’t such a huge hassle. What really bugged me was that my rear tyre used to wear out very quickly. If I had the wheel loose against the roller, it slipped and wore out. If I had it tight, it got hot and wore out!

Some time later, I used a really nice fixed-wheel exercise bike in a local gym and that felt great (until I forgot that it had no freewheel and stopped pedalling – that was a bit painful!). It had enough adjustments that I could pretty much replicate my normal bike position, and it had a huge weighted flywheel which made it very smooth.

The thing is – I’m not a great fan of going to the gym. I decided that I’d be better off getting my own gym bike but I was a bit shocked when I saw how much the best ones cost. I really liked the look of the Lemond range, but they were out of my price range at the time. I ended up settling for a cheaper option. I paid about £125 (at the time about $250) for mine. It’s not too bad apart from the restricted range of adjustment. I’m not that tall (6′ 1″) and I don’t have long legs for my height (32″-33″) so I was pretty surprised for the saddle to be about 4″ too low at its highest setting.

I don’t think that my bike was really aimed at cyclists. Most non-cyclists naturally seem to have their saddles too low – I know that I did when I got back into cycling as an adult. I gradually raised the road bike saddle over a year or so and now it feels awful to pedal with a low position (too much bend in the knees).

I had to ‘bodge’ the exercise bike to get it to be rideable. I’m going to do an article on that soon when I start a promotion for gym bikes. I want to make the point that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well – if you can afford it. Better to have a cheap bike, than not have one at all, as long as it isn’t so bad that it causes discomfort or injuries…

I gave the old turbo trainer to an overweight friend but he doesn’t use it – same old story! [Mark - if you still haven't started using it - do so ASAP! You know that your health is starting to suffer. Just put some lively music on and pedal away...]

See you on the Inner Circle forum Ed and good luck with your own fat loss and fitness program,
ColinJ