Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I really wanted to like this bike. Using a recumbent bike has always been my favorite way to burn some extra calories when I get out of shape. And I have. So I saw this Schwinn for less than $300 which was frankly quite surprising, but as they say, you get what you pay for. The bike assembled easily enough, the instructions weren't difficult to follow and they even provided tools for assembly (although you'd be better off using something of your own if you have decent tools). Once assembled and powered on, I hopped on the bike to give it a spin. Initially I was impressed. The bike was sturdy, easy to adjust and once I glanced at the manual, easy to program. I set the bike for my age(32) and 90% target heart rate, and 40 minutes. After five minutes or so, I realized something was wrong. At this point, I had been pushing the maximum resistance the bike could give me for a couple of minutes and it couldn't get my pulse rate over about 145. Now, if I were some fitness junky who works out all of the time, maybe I could see this, but I'm 5'11" and 215lbs(quite chubby). I canceled the workout and tried again at 70% target heart rate and that worked better. It still had to go up to maximum to get me to THR (140), but once there it bounced up and down to keep my pulse in the target range. After a 40 minute workout, I noticed something else wrong. According to the machine I had burned close to 900 calories! There is positively NO WAY I could have burned much more than 1/2 of that in that time frame at my current fitness level. When I was in the Air Force 6 years ago and working out 5 times a week, I would burn about 600 calories in a 45 minute workout on a recumbent bike at the gym (same ballpark for all of the 10+ different bikes at the gym). That was when I weighed about 180lbs and was much younger. After a few workouts I noticed yet another problem. The bike emits a bad smell from the main compartment (and no its not BO). I don't know if it is caused by friction from the workout or what, but it gets worse as the workout progresses. At this point, I emailed amazon for an exchange thinking the bike was defective. The exchange policy worked as well as possible for a 90lb piece of exercise equipment and I received a new bike promptly. Unfortunately, the new bike is exhibiting the same problems (although to a lesser extent) as the old one. The smell isn't as pervasive, but still shows up during/after long workouts. The calorie count is slightly closer to believable, but I still think it is way off. I'm not going to send it back however, because wrestling the pieces back into the box once was all the fun I could stand, so I'm left with a slightly smelly bike that tells me I working out harder than I actually am (and will probably not be good enough to get my heart rate up if I actually get back into shape. For what it is worth, my parents have one of the more expensive Schwinn models (I think it is a 230 or 231) and have had no problems at all and it gave a more realistic calorie count when I rode it. Perhaps the company simply skimped a little too much on this economy model. My advice would be to recommend stepping up to one of the better models and avoid the active 20 series. Oh, one last thing, if you are over 6ft tall, don't expect to be able to completely extend your leg, even with the seat all the way back. I have the seat all the way back and can just barely go through a full range of motion.