Peter's Blog

On the exercise bike I've progressed from levels 4 to 7, all at 24 minute duration and final distance is always precisely 13.88km. So what's to stop me fitting a standard cycle computer to measure speed and distance traveled? Another project for the list.

UPDATE: better plan, use a cordless optical mouse to detect the crank going round and do the logging on a pc. Less wiring. I was planning something like this for the rowing machine but never got around to it as the setup was more awkward.

Since the profile of the hill program is predefined, data logging program can munge together speed with 'hill steepness factor' to give a measurement of effort expended.

Following my shock discovery that the tunturi rowing machine only counted strokes and that length of stroke made no difference to "distance" travelled (here) my latest outrage concerns my exercise bike. I was peddling away last night and realised that the calories/hour display showed the same number however fast I pedalled. This explains why the end total is always 190 calories with little variation. Now I know that the calories display is highly inaccurate as a measure of absolute number of calories burned but it ought to be useful as a relative measure of effort expended, e.g. if I work harder I should get a higher number.

It has a total distance measurement and presumably that will vary with speed (haven't checked this yet, there is no speed display just total distance) and should indicate effort expended but when I change the difficulty setting I cannot compare the numbers between sessions.

Does everyone spend their time on exercise equipment figuring out the programming of the clocks? If not then what stops you getting bored?

I am still enjoying it, the 24 minute program seems to take 10 minutes where half an hour on a rowing machine felt like a hour. Sudden thought: better check it against a clock.

Update: either I always manage exactly 13.88 km on every session or the distance accrued is based on time rather than revolutions of the pedals. Since it has an RPM display it must be able to measure pedals going round, how can the firmware be so primitive??? There's nothing to measure relative effort expended, nothing to show you that you worked a little bit harder than you did last time.

Another session on exercise bike:

• It's very noisy: will need to chock it on something to try to absorb vibrations. I think the vibration comes from the chain mechanism, more recent models use belt drive.
• It does the job: 24 minute program (longest) left me dripping, had to wipe it down after. Legs felt much better.
• It has three programs, random, hill and manual. I've only used hill so far. It starts off with gently increasing difficulty, an easy bit, a plateau of a couple of minutes of moderate difficulty, then interval training, minute on with greatly increasing resistance, minute off, followed by a few minutes cool down. The hardest bit is like slogging up hill in a high gear. The programming is crude, you can select 6, 12, 18 or 24 minutes which relates to the scaling of the program: 24 minutes = 20 seconds/division, 18 minutes = 15 seconds/division etc with the difficulty of each division shown as a vertical line of leds on the display (thought for the day: how easy would it be to hack the firmware??? Will it run linux???).
• I'm doing it on level four out of twelve, with the aim of increasing this gradually. On four the 'easy' bits are not that easy, I have to work to maintain the rpm. Other machines I have used have coasted on the easy bits, even at higher levels. Could be because it's an old machine, could be because I am not strong, could be both. Not being too easy shouldn't be a problem, it's supposed to be exercise.
• The original ebay picture that swayed me. It's bigger than it looks here, the top of the console is level with my shoulders.
  

Since I moved house I'm further from work than I would want to cycle so I was in the market for an exercise bike as I am in danger of becoming a blob. I wanted a good quality one, preferably commercial gym quality, one that had programs to simulate hills to make things challenging. New commercial bikes are multiple thousands so I decided to go second hand.

On ebay I found a Life Fitness 9500 being sold by a gym only 15 miles down the road. Current bid was £80 with three hours to go so for the first time I made a bid on ebay. I let the automated bidding do it's thing and three hours later I had 'won' it for £215.

I drove to the gym to pay cash and collect. It is in fairly good condition, it uses ancient red led's but it is very solidly built (it doesn't wobble when I stand on it). I put it in the car and drove it home and when I tried it again there was no resistance as the chain had come off. I undid about a million well-worn screws to take the covers off and the chain was flopping about. I got it back on but it could do with a few links taken out to tighten it up as it has probably been used for tens of thousands of virtual miles and is visibly stretched and droopy.

Since the bike is 'self powered' it has some batterys that you charge as you pedal to keep the thing going. I suspect that these could do with replacing as it goes dead at the slightest pause. They appear to be type D nicads but they are in plastic enclosures so I cannot be sure.

Wife has promised to wash it down with dettol before we take it into the house: I know first hand how much sweat can be poured on one of these things (I used to draw patterns as I used one).

I have found refurbished machines of this model on sale on the net for over $1000 so I'm feeling pleased with myself.

UPDATE:

• tried removing links from chain but then the ends would not meet up: it was only slack by half a link. Looked like a lot more. Put it back as was.
• did a session on it last night: bliss. Play loud music and let the endorphins flow. rowing is hard and boring. No hills.