Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

7/27/15 update: the control unit has begun having wacky problems, it thinks the level has been increased or decreased but the actual resistance stays the same, and eventually it starts beeping and blinking "Err." Unplugging the unit and re-connecting it temporarily fixes the problem; I'll post how the company responds to my request for assistance. Down one star in the meantime. 8/7/15 update: AVOID EXERPEUTIC PRODUCTS LIKE THE PLAGUE. Two emails with detailed descriptions of the problem and a copy of my Amazon invoice resulted in "can only be handled by phone." Okay, so I took off half a day from work and called. He's busy, call back in an hour. Called. He's busy, he'll call you in ten minutes. Called. He's busy, he'll call you when he's done with the current customer. Called. He's at lunch. Okay, is there anybody else who can help me? Them: What's the problem? Oh, that means the magnet is too tight, you have to send it back in the original box. Me: Wait, you mean I have to send the WHOLE THING (100 pounds), I can't just send the defective part? Them: No, the whole thing or we can't fix it. Me: Can you provide the instructions for the fix so I can try it or have a local repairman try it? Them: No. Ten months, fatal problem, company deliberately making it essentially impossible to get it fixed. Note that while it is generally unacceptable to use a product review to rate a seller, in this case the seller WAS THE MANUFACTURER (doing business as "Paradigm Corp."), so no matter who you buy it from you will also be buying the same poor workmanship and bad customer service. Oh, and remind me again why I had to take off from work in order to talk (or not talk would be more like it) to customer support - why couldn't I have been told this via e-mail? Meanwhile, I managed to fix it myself. Remove the left pedal, remove the rubber o-ring around the left pedal, remove all the screws on the right side and the one screw on the left, remove the nut holding the power connector to the left panel and push the power connector back out of its hole, remove the left panel (with pedal crank facing rearwards, the entire left panel will slide off backwards). There is no need to remove the right panel, pedal, or o-ring. Get some silicone spray and spray the wire cable where it enters the sheath near the front and spray the channel in the flywheel where that cable exits. Plug the power cord back in and use the manual control mode to start increasing and decreasing the resistance, first one step at a time and gradually over the entire range, spraying more silicone over the wire so it gets dragged into the sheath at both ends (if you hit a timeout error, unplug power, wait three seconds, replug). If that doesn't work all by itself - it did for me - there's also a long tensioner "nut" at the back of that cable that you could try spinning a turn or two in or out, like adjusting a bicycle brake. Reattach power jack, reverse order of screws and o-ring, remember that the left pedal goes on "backwards" (left-hand thread). Since it is back in operation, I cannot in good conscience give it a single star...but no thanks whatsoever to Exerpeutic/Paradigm. 10/18/15 FINAL UPDATE: And now it has completely died, down to a single star. Still technically in warranty but dead as a doornail. I disconnected the front and rear halves, threw the P.O.S. front half in the trash, and parked a MagneCycle (do a search, you'll be happy you did) in front of the seat portion so at least I'm getting some kind of use out of the $350 I wasted on the Exerpeutic. Happy at last, but not because of Exerpeutic! ------------------------------------------ Original post: PROS: 1. Screws are already mounted so you don't have to guess where each one goes. This makes assembly extremely simple and eliminates getting the wrong screw in the wrong hole - you hardly have to refer to the instructions at all, it is so simple. Those screws, by the way, are stainless steel - a very pleasant surprise from the crap hardware usually included. 2. Very comfortable seat: thick, cushy, big (many of the sub-$2000 units I looked at had tiny seats), non-slip. 3. The tension goes WAY past what I can handle. One of the things I did not like about the upright bike I am replacing is that I ran it at its top level all the time. Its hardest level was just right for me, but if I had wanted any additional tension there would be no more to be had. At level 4, this bike provides the same resistance as the old bike topped out. 4. GREAT mounting point for Kindle/tablet, even a computer keyboard (wired or wireless). Holds electronic devices very securely and instantly. 5. Handlebars are comfortable. 6. Quiet pedaling mechanism. 7. Easy assembly: major components are pre-assembled and instructions are clear, with each illustration explaining just one operation at a time. 8. Simple, no-nonsense control unit low and out of the way of television line-of-sight. CONS: 1. Nearly every single screw has to be removed, and then re-installed, adding a fair amount of time to assembly. 2. Seat wobbles slightly. To be more accurate, the rather unusual double-bar seat sliding mechanism wobbles slightly, it is frankly trying to be too clever for its own good. And it is of course a hassle to adjust the seat with its three separate knobs so a real disadvantage if different people of different heights will be regularly using it. Here's a helpful hint during assembly: the handle on the right appears to be impossible to screw in with the seat mounted as shown in the instructions. I took the seat back off, only to discover that it still would not screw in because of other interference. Not explained in the brief but otherwise excellent (no Chinenglish) instructions is that the handle can be pivoted by pulling it out. This becomes obvious in use (you unscrew the handle A LITTLE to loosen it, and then yank it straight out to move the seat, there's a spring inside that keeps the handle from coming all the way out) but you also take advantage of that during assembly - you start screwing it in and, when you can't go any further, you start pulling the handle outwards, rotating it back, releasing it, and screwing down some more and repeating until it's all the way in (if you ever used a ratchet wrench, same idea). 3. The tension goes WAY past what I can handle. There are only 8 settings in total (my old bike had 20) so at level 4 I only have three levels below me (and I have pretty strong legs, some people will be on 3 or even 2). This means that during cooldown instead of having 19 levels below me (which I would skip down two levels at a time every 30 seconds, so five minutes' worth of cooldown) I have only 3 and some will have only 2 or 1. Basically one minute you are working hard, one minute you are cooling down, and one minute you are done. 4. TERRIBLE mounting point for a physical book. But that's a rarity anyway and hey, you're on Amazon so you should be using a Kindle anyway :-). 5. Handlebars are awkward. They splay too far out to the sides, much wider than the picture shows. 6. Rough pedaling action. Actually, that's not technically true, the pedaling is absolutely smooth...but your legs are not. As anyone who took trigonometry knows, when you are going in a circle it's slow slow slow until you pass 30 degrees and then its fastfastfast and then it's slow slow slow as you reach the far side; your effort is constantly changing as you pedal through the circle. On a real bike, this effect is invisible because of the turning wheels dragging the mass of the bike along; on better exercise bikes, this effect is simulated with a flywheel. The Exerpeutic 2000 either has no flywheel or, if it does, it is inadequate; I like to pedal slowly (meaning I jack the resistance up) and this phenomenon of slow slow slow fastfastfast slow slow slow is quite noticeable - which feels like rough pedaling. At lower resistance, you pedal faster and the momentum begins to carry you through the circle (momentum = mass times speed, so if you are going faster you make up for the lack of flywheel mass). If you like to pedal fast then you won't notice this, at least not so much. 7. Difficult assembly, because while as of this date Amazon's product page says it weighs 63 pounds, it is well over 100. That makes it very sturdy but difficult to get out of the box. Turn the box on its side and slide everything out, and carry the major parts individually to where you are going to assemble it. 8. Unit did not come with the prerequisite magnifying glass to be able to see the truly tiny icons that tell you what mode you are in. "Press Set until the mode indicator displays MANUAL," says the instructions. Which one of these tiny blinking symbols is that again? Obviously once you have used it for a while, you'll know.