Sunday, March 2, 2008

Finally, I have my recumbent bike!

Finally, the finances cooperated enough that I was able to go out and get my recumbent exercise bike today ($98 at Wal-Mart). We brought it home and set it up first thing (yay, I know how to read and follow directions.....lol). I figured sitting on the floor and moving around to set it up was warm-up enough for a short try-out, so after getting it all set to go, I gave her a whirl. Turned on the tv and got to watch Kill Bill 2 while I was exercising (well, 12 minutes of it, anyway, not a biggie since I've seen the movie at least 4 or 5 times). Now, in that 12 minutes, I managed to ride a couple of miles (it tracks how far you ride, up to 99.99 miles), I got my heart rate to go from 72 to 123, and didn't have any problems with my knee killing me until the last couple of minutes. So, I figure that's pretty good for an old, fat, sedentary person who hasn't done any major exercise in the last, oh, probably 20 years. I think I'm going to start out with 15 minutes twice a day for a week and see how I do with it, then gradually increase the length of time. Once I can do a half hour twice a day, I want to see if I can increase how fast I'm pedaling and get my heart rate up.
I was hoping this was going to work for my knee, and it looks like it will (my knee was hurting when I started riding, from the walking I did at Wal-Mart, where we got the bike, but even after 12 minutes of pedaling, the pain wasn't unbearable). I'm looking forward to getting into better shape so that when warm weather finally gets here, I can buy a wheeled recumbent bike to ride on the bike trail that runs past our house. I like the recumbent bike because it has a seat like a chair and doesn't kill my ass, which is why I quit riding a regular bike years ago (so now I have to see how much one of those costs and start saving money for it).

13 comments:

  1. Awesome, Mariellen, that motivates me!!! I didn't know you could get one for such a reasonable price, now only to find a place in the apartment where I can put it!!! Take care!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michelle - the one I got doesn't really take up that much room. It's about 18" wide and maybe 4 1/2 feet long (the length of it depends on how long your legs are). I have long legs so mine is adjusted so that when I pedal, one leg is fully extended (that way the other leg doesn't have my knee bending more than is comfortable for me). It came with tools and instructions for assembly and was pretty easy to do, but it will be easier to assemble if you have a basic set of sockets and a ratchet (I'm good at that kind of thing, I went to college about 25 years ago to be an auto mechanic, so I haz mad assembly skillz).
    Using it is actually fun, it doesn't really feel like exercising, I feel like I'm watching tv in a comfortable seat and just moving my legs a lot......lol.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, wow, that is cheap. I try not to frequent Wal-Mart, but I did get my treadmill there just because it was so much cheaper than the sports stores. I didn't have hundreds and hundreds of dollars to spend on one - the Wal-Mart treadmill was under $300.

    I got a new bike a couple years ago and promptly replaced the seat on it with a wider one. Bike seats are uncomfortable for people of all sizes, I think.

    ReplyDelete
  4. OH! Cool! I've been looking around for one that's rated for my weight. I'm thinking of just buying the one rated for up to 250lbs and figuring that if it breaks, it breaks...I'll buy a new one. Thanks for the info!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cat - the one I got is only rated to 250 lbs, but it seems to be holding me quite well. Even if it only lasts a year, at that price, I can afford to replace it every year if I want.

    Rachel - I didn't have a lot to spend either, that's why I got it at Wal-Mart, it was cheaper than anywhere else.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Bike seats are uncomfortable for people of all sizes, I think."

    Yep. My husband biked to work (7 miles each way) and back for 8 years, and the first thing we'd do when getting a new bike was to replace the seat with a big, wide, gel-pack seat. Those regular seats are horrendous! And he was quite thin.

    Congrats on your bike, vesta, I wish you all the best with it. I'm going to see how I do with the extra walking taking the train to work now and after that maybe break out my "Total Gym" which has sat pretty idle for a long time (I got sick soon after buying it.) It's cheaper than a gym but does the work of pretty much all the machines. We might need a few cott pins or the D ring, but that's about it. No sense letting it go to waste forever.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Annie - When I was a kid, I had a paper route and rode my bike a lot, and I don't remember the bike seat bothering me back then, or when I was an adult living in Spokane (I rode a bike all over town, couldn't afford a car). It just seems like the older I got, the more the seat bothered my butt.
    DH wants a Bowflex, but won't get one because he doesn't know where we'd set it up with my bike set up in our bedroom in the basement (there's no room in the living room, and we'd never get it up the steep, narrow stairs to the 2nd floor where my sewing room and the other bedroom are).

    ReplyDelete
  8. Vesta - I hear you; I think bike seats got worse or something - much narrower and harder - sometime in the 90s. I dunno. The ones here were nasty. We always bought them from a good bike shop too. Oh well.

    I'm glad you're doing well with yours at any rate!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Recumbent bikes rule! I remember my high school gym class had them. Everyone loved to sit in them and pretend like they were pedaling.

    I mean seriously. Do you need gym class when you're running up and down stairs all day trying to get to class?

    ReplyDelete
  10. violet_yoshi - My junior high school was 3 levels above ground and a basement so gym was rather redundant after doing stairs all day long. But our high school was one level, and most of the classrooms were pretty close, so there wasn't a lot of walking done between classes and gym was a good idea (if you had a good gym teacher, I didn't, which is why I skipped gym most of the time). I got plenty of exercise outside of school since I had a paper route and rode my bike about 10 miles a day delivering papers, walked to school every day (about a 1/2 mile there), and roller skated 3 hours a night, 3 nights a week. With all of that, and gym classes too, I was still considered fat by the BMI (well, overweight anyway).

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi!

    I came across your blog via fullfigureplus.com. I'm not sure if you had come across this website in your searches for a recumbent bicycle, but there is a website www.suspersizedcycles.com that has bicycles and even tri-cycles. Some of them are pricey, but from what I have heard, they are definitely worth the money!

    I will be vising again! Love your blog! :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Very nice to meet you Ms. Aja - can I just say the link to the supersized bicycles is broken and I can't get to it? Please see if you can get the right one, as I've long wanted a tricycle to start getting exercise. There's just no way I'm getting on a two-wheeler lol.

    ReplyDelete
  13. ms aja b - thanks for the site, I'll be checking it out for sure since I'm looking for a bike that will support my weight without breaking on me :)

    annie - I sent you a link for it, I had to type it into my browser to get it to work for me.

    ReplyDelete

Comment moderation is enabled. If you're a troll and trying to slander someone or just being generally an asshat, your comment probably won't see the light of day. If you want to have a reasonable, civil discussion, welcome, and feel free to comment.
To the troll at IP: 70.242.65.196 , adsl-70-242-65-196.dsl.stlsmo.swbell.net, your comments will not be published, nor will they be read. They will be automatically deleted. Get a life, sad sack.