It kind of creeps up on you. You are athletic, playing a few sports, living an active lifestyle, and then it happens. For me it was about 10 pounds a year over the last 6 years or so. I had a little brush with a heart incident about 3 years ago that should have scared me back on the right path. It didn’t.
Over the course of that 6 years, my active lifestyle has dwindled with kids and family responsibilities. All of which are also easy excuses. I’ve made a few attempts in the last year to get moving.
A couple weeks ago I made the decision to get an exercise bike. My wife’s worries that it will become a laundry rack were set aside with a wager that if she finds any clothing on it other than a workout towel, it’d better have at least 20 miles on it over the previous 7 days or I’m on the hook of handing over a cool $1000 to her. I’m not letting that happen.
After a few days of trying and deciding, I ended up going with the Livestrong LS 5.0u upright bike*. I purchased mine through Amazon, but I also tested it out at Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Mine arrived yesterday and took roughly an hour to assemble in to shape. I gave it a quick test last night, but had some prior work commitments to get to. Tonight, my first ride, 30 minutes on a easy level to give my legs a test and see where I stand. 4 minutes in to the warm up I was ready to quit, but I stayed on it. The twinge in my knee loosened up after a few minutes and my little touch of asthma loosed up after a quick bit of tightness as my heart rate increased.
30 minutes later I stepped off. 8.8 miles and the guesstimated 260 calories burned. A nice stream of sweat coming from head.
I’m back on the bike.
*the link is an Amazon affiliate link. My thoughts on the bike, easily 4-5 stars on Amazon’s rating. The feel of the bike is similar to health club units, but there are some obvious trade-offs with the computer/display unit, simple LED readout of workout vitals – the usual things you see with home models. But this has the heft of a club unit, especially when compared to the $250-$350 pricepoint of the entry level home exercise bikes. I happy with it, and I like that it is USB-enabled so I can transfer my workout data to Livestrong.com. The data is a simple XML file so it could be adapted to whatever uses you might find.
I bought mine tonight. I think I am missing a console cable that connects the console cables from the bike frame through the console mast to the console. This is step 3 of the assembly. Any ideas? I’ve gone through the packaging a dozen times and the support desk is closed.
Jeff, mine were inside the console mast, being held at each end with a wire twisty.
Mine was missing as well. I was able to get a hold of a Livestrong rep on the phone, do the registration of the bike and put in the order for a replacement console cable.
It arrived today (5 days after the call). Put the rest of the bike together after that. Found a couple of other missing pieces . . . the handlebar cover and the referenced USB stick. The instructions for use indicate that a Livestrong USB should be used.
After calling the help desk again, I was told that there was a misprint and the USB’s were no longer being shipped with the bike. Ho hum.
Happy in general. Would have liked all of the pieces to be available the first time around. But they were gracious and apologetic when I talked to them.
The only thing I don’t like about the bike is there is no way to “switch” it off. . . nor does it “sleep”. The display is active as long as it is plugged in. Perhaps a nit, but I like my devices to at least appear “off” when not in use.
Looking forward to getting rolling. Used to be a 3500 mi./year cyclist but my IT job, stress and life in general started getting in the way. VERY anxious to get “rolling”.