Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I hesitate to do Amazon reviews anymore due to problems with the company ethics, however this device is brilliant and it could make real differences in the quality of folks lives, so I'm taking the time. Not everyone will take to it like I have, but it has made a huge difference for me! I have a very nice treadmill down in the basement, but the impacts on the knee joints were a problem. I was looking at getting a recumbent stationary bike when I happened across this gem. Long story short in the couple of months that I've had it, I have to consciously choose _not_ to use it at least one day a week. I'm a software engineer and scrum master. I work from home. I spend a _lot_ of hours on the phone running meetings and participating in meetings. I can pedal this thing at 10-14mpg without making _any_ noise whatsoever. I don't even have to mute the phone, there just isn't any noise to mute. With the treadmill I would force myself to keep walking for as long as I could (persevering through the boredom of watching TV while I walked - TV is not my thing) until I did my 200-300 calories of exercise. That's when I could take the time to do it and I felt like spending some of my time on it. With the DeskCycle, I find it's just like pacing the hall - it helps you think and I just do it without thinking. I now typically pedal 25 to 40 miles per day every day without even thinking about it (and that's with resistance on 6, which means I'm burning 600 to 1,000 additional calories every day. It's not full-on aerobic, I'm not getting winded or the benefits of that, but I get huge benefits in that I feel so much better at the end of a long day, and it has greatly strengthened and toned my lower back muscles. It also put some vague vestige of stomach muscles on me. The cons: The biggest one is wear and tear on your office chair. I have a Freedom chair, which is a pretty piece of hardware, and I'm a big guy of 240 pounds. The chair is being used like the seat on a recumbent bike, which are built a lot sturdier. I have to use silicone lube on the chair now and then because the parts are constantly shifting/rubbing as I'm peddling. You also need to throw a towel over your chair if you're going to pedal hard. Office chairs aren't designed to be sweated in/on. I'm using it under an Ergotron sit-stand desk with the Ergotron keyboard tray on it, and the geometry is good. I can comfortably type while I'm working, while I'm talking on the phone and while I'm surfing the web, but I do have short legs for my height (5'11" with ~31" inseam) Two minor cons: First, the display should be backlit, it's very difficult to read under many conditions, and second, the metal bracket for mounting the display on the unit shouldn't be welded on. The unit becomes a natural footrest when not in use, and that hard metal bit sticking up gets in the way. If it were bolted on and they offered an optional flip-up padded footstool top that could be bolted on in place of it, that would be a helpful feature. Build quality is excellent, no problems with pedals *however* I think I may know how people screw that up. I liked mine so much we ordered one for my wife. She tried to put it together but couldn't get the pedals to go on/make any sense. She's worse than me when it comes to not reading instructions. It took me a while but I finally realized she had mounted the legs backwards - the long leg the rear and short leg on the front. This completely changes what you think of as front/rear and left/right and the pedal installation instructions just don't make any sense until the legs are put in the proper place. I don't award 5 stars often/lightly but this one is a five star product, it greatly exceeds my expectations. If I ever wear this one out, I'll be back for another. I'm probably going to buy a third one to keep in my "real" office at work because I get antsy now if I can't pedal while I'm working.