Before you being your search for an exercise bike, consider your exercise goals and understand the various features available on these machines in order to make the right choice for you. Because they work only the lower body, exercise bikes are not the choice of workout for those looking for overall muscle building. For this reason, exercise bikes are primarily used for cardio workouts.
Making sure an exercise bike does what you need it to do helps you rate these machines against one another, based on your need scale.
Step 1
Choose between an upright bike or stationary bike. A recumbent stationary bike allows you to lean farther back during exercise, with your hands even with or below your hips. This provides a more comfortable position, but does not allow you to stand and cycle, decreasing your ability to build leg muscle by adding your body weight as resistance. While adjustable resistance setting on a recumbent bike may give you enough resistance to even this discrepancy, you can use different muscles while standing and pedaling than you do while leaning back. Most bike users find recumbent bikes more comfortable, producing less buttock fatigue or soreness than a traditional bike.
Step 2
Examine resistance levels. The main feature of any exercise bike, whether your goal is a cardio workout or muscle building, is resistance. The more resistance, the more difficult the exercise and more muscle effort required. In addition to muscle building, higher resistance levels also produce more cardiovascular exertion. All exercise bikes offer some level of adjustable resistance. If you are using an exercise bike as only one part of a cross-training regimen, or your goal is primarily aerobic and not muscle building, you may not need the maximum resistance offered by the high-end, expensive machines. If you are a cyclist who is looking to build leg muscle mass and endurance, you'll want the extra resistance.
Step 3
Examine how the resistance works on various bikes. For an efficient cardio workout that lets you increase and decrease your effort to create peaks and valleys, you'll want a machine that lets you change resistance levels while you are exercising, rather than one requiring you to stop and manually change the setting. Some bikes are computerized and change resistance for you, while others require a manual change, which can be performed while you are exercising. Exercise bikes offer two types of resistance mechanisms: in less-expensive machines, tension belts create resistance, while in more costly bikes magnetic resistance provides the changes.
Step 4
Examine the electronics of various bikes. Some machines offer everything from heart rate monitors to automatic resistance changing to pre-planned workouts simulating uphill and downhill bike rides. The more electronics the machine has, the more expensive it will be.
Step 5
Examine the price and warranty. Exercise bikes can cost from the low hundreds of dollars up to $1,500 and more. While you can find many little-used machines on Craigslist or eBay for less than half the cost of a new bike, they do not come with a warranty. Check the manufacturer's warranty before you buy any new bike, and look for the length of the warranty, if the warranty covers parts, repair or replacement, and if an extended warranty is offered.
Things You'll Need
- Checklist of features you want
- Bike specification chart or sales materials
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