More of a gadget, but it works I suppose.
Written: Jul 14 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Space-saving,relatively cheap,fun gadget
Cons: small pedals
The Bottom Line: Get it if you're into gadgets, and absolutely can't get a real stationary bike or other exercise machine.
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| henrywei's Full Review: Eloton Simcycle |
I received this as a birthday gift because I'm a gadget collector, and I'm also overweight and live in an apartment with limited space.
As far as the assembly of the thing, it comes with all the parts you need (a small thin wrench and a hex-key with some bolts, washers and screws) to put the legs on and the pedals on. In about 20 minutes, I had the thing put together. Overall, the construction is pretty solid throughout. In total, you could probably fit the whole thing on the floor of your closet, and most people could probably pick it up with one hand -- though it is still hefty.
The resistance is primarily from a adjustable nylon tension belt, which can be reset from a latch below, or adjusted from a knob above.
The computer interface plugs into a mini-plug jack on the Simcycle, and into a serial port on the computer. The software ran fine on my laptop (Pentium III w/ Windows ME). You choose how long you want to cycle for, and also what sort of scenery you want. The package I bought comes with 7 different movie scenes. The speed at which you cycle largely determines how fast you move through these different virtual courses, although I found it to be more of an on-off type of switch of pedalling/not pedalling to control the movie. It has various readouts of time, calories, etc., which are nice (and probably prerequisite) features. Each movie is about 500 MB's, so I ran the scenery off the CD-ROM rather than copying to the hard drive first (though that is an option.)
Overall, I'm somewhat pleased by the device so far. I've got it in front of the sofa, and I'm much more likely to pedal on this than to get on the elliptical machine, but I'm skeptical as to how much of a workout it gives you. And, most notably, the pedals are small, a bit larger than biking handlebars. This is probably to allow you to pedal with your hands, but unless you're paraplegic, you probably won't use this function.
(No offense to paraplegics by the way; actually, this would be a particularly attractive product to those seeking a hand-pedal machine, given that the pedals are more like hand grips).
That being said, there is enough resistance available to let you build up a sweat fairly quickly. We'll have to wait to see if it does anything for my waistline.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
henrywei
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Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital
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