Ive recently been struggling to get myself to the gym mainly due to working almost every day of the week and running the website aswell ontop of having an extremely demanding partner.

Well to try and keep myself on track and to help me get in shape for my holiday in May ive finally decided to get myself an exercise bike.

I have spent ages looking at what to get and what am I actually going to make good use of because there is tonnes of equipment out there for all sorts of money and some promise to be the best thing since protein shakes but they are always really hard to use and you get bored of their gimics fast and when it really comes down to it theres only a few main things that you really need a bit of cardio equipment for.

1. It needs to be easy to use and quick to set up. If its not you just wont bother to use it.

2. You need to be able to get on it and stay on it for a good hour or so.

3. You need to be able to use it and it not be too complicated otherwise it will annoy you and youll be-grudge using it.

4. It shouldnt be too expensive otherwise if you dont keep up using it you will hate it even more!

The best and easiest bit of kit you can get yourself is an exercise bike and more importantly a spinning bike there not as bulky looking as some other bikes and you always find exercise bikes are full of gimics and fancy sounding technology that really just puts you off when your trying to train hard so here is what I went through trying to get my perfect bike.

I had set my eyes on the Kettler Racer after seeing the expensive Ergo Racer model in Mens Fitness magazine the other month. Its got excellent build quality and typically german it has all the gadgets and things you would want and it looks the business.

The kettler racer has a few features that most people wont even think about when looking at getting a bike for home use. Alot of the time you will just think hmmm exercise bike and the gym and you know the amount of noise those things make and how many times have you been in a spinning class and its just a non stop wherring and the clicking of chains on freewheels.
Noise is a big factor when it comes to home gym equipment. Lets face it, your other half isnt going to be happy you want to fill their house with gym equipment and if they are gonna put up with that they are not going to put up with you making loads of noise all the way through Eastenders.

The Kettler Racer is Belt driven it runs on groved plates on the crank end and the flywheel end so you dont get much in the way of pedal noise so its a near silent operation, which im sure your partners or your parents would be grateful to hear.

It also has the feature where it picks up your heart rate from a heart rate monitor belt so you dont have to have all of the extra cables dangling around.

I personally rate the Kettler Race a 8/10
The only things that let it down are;

1. The weight. The kettler race weighs around 65kg and its quite bulky so its not easy to move around
2. The Price. If youve got the money to spend then its well worth it, Its £749 from most places but its only £630 from sweatband.com – Kettler Race Bike
You wont get a better deal anywhere else sweatband gives the best prices and with most bikes you get a free gift and free delivery so you really cant go wrong.

I had to look about for a while longer in my search because I couldnt justify spending £630 on a bike right now, ive got so much to pay out for and its a big chunk of money to spend on something you might not end up using.

Sweatband offer a massive selection of bikes from budget £299 spinners all the way upto the Trixter bikes at £1200-1300 and they do quite a few nice mid range ones too like the DKN Racer Pro Spin Bike

I ended up with a second hand Kettler ergo SR2 purely because of the price as im putting money aside for the business and hopefully there will be a London Muscle Gym Opening somewhere in East London so I wont need to have a bike at home anymore!

Make sure you checkout www.sweatband.com via our links for all of your equiptment needs.

Chris Hall
managing Director
London Muscle Ltd.