Karen writes: Spin bike shopping

I have been learning about spin bikes and exercise bikes.   The spin bike is meant to mimic road riding - a bit - you can get down into the crouched position, or stand up and go hard out in a way that ordinary exercycles aren’t designed for.   Since I destroyed my el-cheapo spin bike and got a refund,  I now needed a new one...fairly urgently.   

An indoor bike seems a bit of a luxury item, but my problem is being able to find time and opportunity to get out to cycle-train. Working during the day, I can get out for a run at night once the girls are settled, provided their Dad isn't on volunteer coastguard call or late home from work, but that doesn't work for cycling. Bike rides often need to be hours and hours long, and it's not smart to ride in the half dark or full dark along our twisty, narrow, country roads.  I'm also happy to run or swim in the rain, but again, while some bad weather cycling is good practice, too much is just plain risky (and nasty).

So, a bit of research and I went on a spin bike hunt... my first port of call was of course that kiwi cheapskate’s paradise, Trademe.   There were a whole lot of new, flash looking things, with exotic sounding claims, fancy paint jobs and suspiciously low start prices with no reserve, these never seemed to sell below their 'buy-now' price.    There were also quite a few of these being apparently re-sold, always a worry.   My experience with so easily finding the 'destruct point' of my first spin bike has obviously made me wary, and some of the discussions with the people trying to sell me new ones made me even warier, particularly when I learned that some spin bikes aren’t made to be ridden standing up... for goodness sake, I thought that was practically the definition of spin? 

Good quality second hand spin bikes were an option, but appeared to fall into two categories, those which were brought with good intentions and not used…and those which had been used as a spin bike should, ie, thrashed, and how to tell the difference?   Hmmm..."spin bike, only ridden to church on Sunday by one careful lady owner...".

Ok, I can't tell an underused used one from an overused used one, can’t really tell a good new one from a bad new one, and being me, I am always in danger of being seduced by a flash colour scheme and a free drink bottle holder.  Finally I realised I didn't have much choice but to rely on someone knowledgeable’s recommendation and a good warranty.  So on Monday, mercifully it's payweek, I take custody of a hire-bike from Elite Fitness in Manukau while I wait for my own new, no frills, grey painted (sigh) spin bike to arrive from overseas...Alisdair  guarantees that I can stand up pedal to my hearts content on my own new bike, however asked that I not be mean to the hire-bike though.   Then I will just have to figure out how to get over the interminable, dreadful, appalling, ghastly, horrible, horrendous, disgusting, enervating, and all-round not very nice, excruciatingly mind-slaughtering boredom which comes from sitting on a seat shoving up and down on a pair of plastic pedals, staring at the wall or the sleeping dog...and going nowhere!