Pro Fitness Foldable Magnetic X Bike

My previous exercise bike of many years (mostly used as a clothes horse, but more recently brought into service in a determined attempt to get fitter and thinner) recently broke. Specifically, its resistance strap wore through and the ride became more like freewheeling down a hill than anything more energetic. With this in mind I decided to go for a bike with magnetic resistance. I settled on this one as, not only did it fulfil my criteria of a magnetic ...
...was also foldable, and storage space is an issue in my house.

As is usual in my reviews, I'll discuss my reasons for my ratings in the 'Specific Criteria,' and include and extra section of general comments.


===Durability===
At £79.99 (when I bought it) this was the cheapest magnetic resistance bike I could find, which didn't fill me with high expectations about the quality of the product. I'm pleased to say ... more

My previous exercise bike of many years (mostly used as a clothes horse, but more recently brought into service in a determined attempt to get fitter and thinner) recently broke. Specifically, its resistance strap wore through and the ride became more like freewheeling down a hill than anything more energetic. With this in mind I decided to go for a bike with magnetic resistance. I settled on this one as, not only did it fulfil my criteria of a magnetic resistance system coupled with a relatively cheap price, but it was also foldable, and storage space is an issue in my house.

As is usual in my reviews, I'll discuss my reasons for my ratings in the 'Specific Criteria,' and include and extra section of general comments.

Durability

At £79.99 (when I bought it) this was the cheapest magnetic resistance bike I could find, which didn't fill me with high expectations about the quality of the product. I'm pleased to say that I have been pleasantly surprised- even before I had put the bike together the individual parts seemed to be solidly constructed using good quality materials and processes.

It went together with no difficulties and no missing parts and, as seems to be standard these days with anything that requires home construction, was supplied with a nifty tool so that I didn't need to spend frustrating hours digging through the tip that is my shed to find various spanners, screwdrivers and allen keys.

Construction having been completed, I sat on the bike, expecting it to feel a little rickety due to the low price and foldability combination. It was actually surprisingly sturdy.

Comfort

The seat is much like an oversized bicycle seat and is appropriately padded. My posterior is not the most bony of all, but this seat of this exercise bike is definitely more comfortable than that of its predecessor.

Ride comfort is where my only real niggle for this product comes in. Due to the rather innovative folding design, the pedals and seat are not as vertically aligned as they are in more static exercise bike designs, and the seat appears to be tilted backwards a little, rather than being parallel with the floor. This means you're forced into leaning back a little whilst cycling. This wouldn't be a problem, but the handlebars are quite far away, which means you have to lean forwards whilst the pedal and seat positions encourage you to lean backwards. The effect is a seating position which feels unusual rather than explicitly uncomfortable.

Niggle #2 regards the seat adjustment. The seat height is adjustable, but having the seat at its lowest setting puts me at about my comfort limit for reaching the pedals (this may be a contributing factor to the seating position issue discussed in the previous paragraph). I'm a little shorter than the average bloke, but at 5'7" I don't consider myself to be unusually tiny, so this is possibly not the best choice of exercise bike for anyone much shorter than me, unless you own a decent pair of platform trainers.

Niggle #3 is possibly compounded by niggles 1 & 2, so if, unlike me, you're a sensible height, then this may not apply to you: The handlebar-mounted computer is awkward to see, and its angle is not adjustable (beyond the minute adjustments available when fitting the handlebars in the first place).

Value for Money

For what it is, this exercise bike compares favourably with its peers in terms of price. £80 may not seem particularly cheap, but if you do a Famous Web Search Engine (FWSE) search for exercise bikes, they're not cheap at the moment. There are cheaper bikes available, but I couldn't find one with a magnetic resistance system. This bike doesn't seem to suffer for its relatively low price- as already stated the build quality is more than acceptable for the price, and I am willing to withstand my three small niggles when the alternative is to spend possibly more than twice as much on a device which, truth be told, won't be twice as good with those niggles fixed.

Extra Comments

• The on-board computer actually works, which is a first as far as I'm concerned in my limited experience of budget exercise bikes. Even the heart monitor (just grab the handlebars where the metal bits are) seems to make some kind of sense, rather than the random number generator I've seen at work in other cheap heart monitoring devices.
• The computer, whilst gaining full marks for the previous point, has labelling around its screen which appears to be largely arbitrary. It's as if the software that's running the display has been changed, but nobody's thought to change the labelling that surrounds it as well. This isn't even worth calling a niggle, though: the system is so easy to use that anyone with even a fractionally functioning brain should be able to work out what's going on.
• The instruction manual has very obviously been loosely translated into English from some other language. This is, however, more entertaining than it is a hindrance to operation.
• The instruction manual gives little more than lip service to the workings of the on-board computer. It doesn't suggest, for example, that it is possible to reset the computer's counters, let alone actually tell you how to do it (hold the button down for a few seconds- told you it was easy to figure out!)
• One thing I've noticed.
• Compared with my previous bike with its strap-based resistance system, this new bike with its magnetic resistance is considerably smoother and quieter.
• I've seen reviews of this bike saying that the resistance is not strong enough, even on the highest setting (there are 8 of them). I don't know what kind of thighs these people have, but I would venture to disagree. If you've got thighs and pecs like Arnie, you're probably looking to spend a bit more on something a more professional. If you're after this product because you're waging war against the never ending cycle of seasonal excesses (Christmas, easter, birthdays, weddings, holidays etc etc etc...) then this should provide enough resistance to make the exercise worthwhile and effective for a wide range of people (or, in my case, a range of wide people).
• The bike is foldable, but it doesn't exactly pack away and fit into a cupboard like an ironing board. Then again, you try cycling on an ironing board. It does, however, reduce in size enough to stand fairly innocuously in a corner when you need it to, rather than taking up the whole living room rug for evermore.

In Conclusion

If you want a way of keeping physically active or losing a bit of weight whilst sitting in front of the telly, you can't really go wrong with this.If you have thighs like tree trunks and are looking to win cycling marathons, you'll be wanting to save up another couple of hundred pounds to get something a bit more professional. 

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