DeskCycle Under Desk Exercise Bike

I bought this since after I graduated school and started working, I quickly put on 50 pounds and lost my flat abs that I used to have. In school, I at least was moving around a lot (due to a large campus), and I suspect age helped as well. But sitting for 8+ hours a day was very bad for my health. I tried a few things over the past few years but nothing did enough or stuck as a habit. I was able to stop the trend of adding pounds, but reversing it is altogether different. Then I saw a news story about them putting pedals on elementary school desks to let kids burn off energy while sitting in class, and I thought that there must be something like this but for adults who sit all day but need to exercise and maintain their health. I found this and gave it a shot due to the high reviews. I've had it for almost a week now and so far, it's met all my expectations! It's too soon to see if it will have a long-term impact on my weight and overall health, but I know what a workout is supposed to feel like, and it definitely gives me one. I have it set up under my desk in my cubicle at work. I swapped out my foot reset for this. It's obviously taller, so I was worried that I might not have enough leg space to use it effectively, being 5'10". The bad news is that my knees do knock up against the underside of my desk, but since I'm using a corner desk, I was able to back up my chair a little bit so that my knees come up in front of the desk. The downside is that if I want to use my keyboard, I have to have it on my lap, and can't pedal. But I do have a lot of time where I'm just waiting for tasks to finish on my computer so I can put the keyboard on my desk and just pedal away. I do martial arts practice and ran a lot in school previously, so my legs already were pretty strong. I was able to pedal pretty well at full tension, but I found that tired me out very quickly. I backed it down to about 3/4 tension (it has 8 levels, so this would be 6) and am able to use that as my "easy-medium" setting. I push it up to 7 for more tension, and back it down to 5 for a cooldown. I've been trying to do interval-style training with it, and I find it is very easy for me to start doing regularly. Since it's always under my feet, it's not a disruption or an effort to actually go and do it. I can start pedaling on a whim. What's handy is it also has a digital readout that, while it can be mounted to the device, also has a stand that lets you put it on your desk. It helps me see how much I use it day-to-day. This gives me motivation to match the amount of effort I put into using it. I usually try to match or exceed distance day over day and put in at least an hour of cumulative exercise. I also wear a Fitbit Surge so I can monitor my heartrate during exercise, and it also gives me a better metric for calorie burn than the readout on the machine (which, like all exercise bikes, can't be completely accurate). Before I got this, I had a hard time hitting 3000 calories burned per day. Since I got it, this has become much simpler. I've watched my heartrate hit my peak zone several times with intense cycling using this machine. I have great expectations that it will help me achieve my goal of weight loss. It also is a great workout for my legs, for which I need to build up my strength in my martial arts practice, so it is a great complement to that as well. It is incredibly silent when you pedal. I can barely hear it. The most sound I hear is my clothes from my motion. My coworkers have commented on how silent it is as well. It is heavy (but not overly so), so it remains in place on the floor as I work. I do have to hook one of my chair legs over the stand though, since my chair tends to roll back as I pedal. Also of note, when I'm not using it, it's low enough that I can rest my feet on top of it so it makes a comfortable footrest! I also sometimes just sit with my feet on the pedals (like if I'm typing, as I need the keyboard on my lap), so it's not really obstructing my ability to sit comfortably when not in use. Setup is easy. It just requires tightening a few nuts and bolts for the stands and the pedals, which can be done with the included wrench. Nothing feels wobbly. Sometimes when I pedal, I do feel a little hitch each rotation, but I think that depends on the direction my feet are pressing, and it doesn't feel like it's broken. I only mention it because it can potentially be an audible sound, though it's still very silent. Overall, I'm very happy with it and definitely would recommend it to others! It's a well built piece of machinery that does its intended job very well. It might end up being just the thing I needed to get my health back on track!