h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For 'Exercise Bike' read 'Expensive Clothes Horse'.

It starts with good intentions and you always think that the more expensive the bike the more you are likely to use it. Not true. It just sits in yur bedroom gathering ties, socks and dust, making you feel bad about how much money you spent on it compared to the actual amount of use you've got out of it. Eventually you feel so bad you have to eat a tub of ice cream to cheer yourself up.

So true. Have just finished hanging holey socks on my own (expensive, bought by parents) exercise bike as I write this. I had such good intentions, though! Tried to overcome the boredom factor by setting the thing up in front of the telly...but I have to confess that I haven't used it for about a year now. Fancy some , anyone?

This one really made me laugh. You buy a bike that costs several times more than a normal one, because you can put in in your bedroom. Then you put a TV in front of it to have somehting to look at. Did it ever occur to you the boredom factor might disappear if you bought a real bike?

It might, but not the embarrassment factor. At least unfit people can wheeze and perspire dangerously in the comfort and privacy of their own homes. That's the idea, anyway. The only time I ever perspire near my exercise bike is when I've snagged another pair of tights on the damn thing !

I just don't see the point of the damn things. To my mind they would be best used in juvenile detention centres, where they would provide a good form of exercise yet not allow the inmates to cycle to their freedom. They could even put a cinematic projection of urban wasteland and council estates in the cyclist's field of view so that they would feel more at home.

Better still, once the ideal cylcing environment had been created for the juvenile offender, they could then hook up the rear-wheels to a dynamo and produce a not insignificant amount of green electricity.

Now that's what I call paying off your debt to society.

Oh dear, I've got an exercise bike. When I got home I realised it was rather inappropriately named. Hope this doesn't count as advertising, but its called an 'explorer'. Won't do much 'exploring' on this bike.

Somebody once told me you could get videos of scenic cycle routes to view whilst on an exercise bike. Is this true? If so, thats really really sad ...

Yeah, that really is sad. Though I once tried watching TV while sitting on an excercise bike. It was at a museum about electricy and the TV was hooked up with the bike. I can tell you you have to bike very fast to be able to get a good picture. Especially as a 10-year old. But I´m sure it would cut down on your TV-time. And it would probably make Tour de France seem more realistic.

Ah the exercise bike, but can it truly be called a bike, is not the description of a bike a two wheeled, self propelled mode of transport allowing the user to move between point A to point B faster than walking yet slower than driving while allowing the user to increase there cardiovascular fitness.
It seem to me that the exercise bike provided very few of the above.
It has only one wheel, does not get you from A to B.
In fact would it not be fair to say that this machine in fact is a unicycle (bloody point less)

Some of them are not called exercise bikes any more! If they've got handlebars that you can pull backwards and forwards, they're called 'riders'. Perhaps the manufacturers have finally realised how ridiculous the idea of a stationary 'bike' is...

So, my 'explorer' exercise bike is not an exercise bike at all! Its a 'rider' - the handlebars move as well.

For some reason, the pedal power (and arm power) operates not a wheel, but of all things, a fan! So if anyone else is in the room they get a nice breeze.

What was I thinking of when I bought it?