After reading many reviews on Spin bikes.. I decided to order this spin trainer for my in home workouts.
I've used spin bikes and classes at David Loydd for over 10 years but wanted something at the house so when I don't have time to drive to the gym, I can have a quick spin at home.. I could save over an hour of my busy schedule if I could do this.
free shipping from amazon took about a week but the package came when scheduled and was pretty happy with time it took to ship.
box arrived a little dented up and had extra packing tape on box.
let me tell you.. this box is heavy.. thus the reason for the dented box.. I'm use the delivery guys bitched and cussed loading and unloading this item from the warehouse all the way to my house :) so for the weight of the box.. I'd say the box was pretty typical of other shipments of this size and weight.
un packing and assembly. strongly suggest a box knife for opening the box.. I cut off all the seam tape and the non stapled sides of the box. I made sure I didn't damage the box incase I needed to return. no problem. unfolded the box and pulled out the nicely insulated packaging around the bike. no damage was found and everything look good for assembly.
assembly took no time at all.. Maybe 15 minutes. the bike comes with assembly tools but they are cheap and flimsy.. I used my own tools so that I could do a decent job with tightening the bolts. one issue I found was the handlebar stem still had some side to side movement after it was completely tightened. the bike has a plastic bushing to snug the stem into the frame but there is a slight gap. I solved this my using a slim piece of aluminum as a shim to tighten it up. there are other ways to reduce the gap but this was quick and easy. you could also take a hammer and "shape" the side of the frame for the stem fit tighter... but.. I didn't want to do that just yet.
set up. bike set up pretty easy and the numbering and adjustment holes are pretty close to the same numbered adjustments I use on the bikes at my gym.
though I think if you are under 5'2" you might be too small for this bike. at 5'11" the adjustments are right in the middle so this bike should fit a large range of peoples size.
Operation: bike is new so the adjustments are a little tight. and the adjustment knob is a little hard to turn.. I'll see how it is after I put a few hours on the bike to see if things loosen up a little.
Seat: what stock bike seat is comfortable?? I found this seat on the bike about even with the seats at the gym.. I'll probably get a gel seat cover so I don't have to wear my bike shorts to spin.. but overall. it was as expected.
spinning was good. push and pull spinning is pretty smooth and nothing that felt funny. standing was no problem after getting the bar stem gap fixed. bike feels really stable when cranking hard.
Pedals and straps are OK.. fit my size 11 mens shoe fine. but just at the edge of fitment being too short.. this is not really a problem as I prefer the clip pedals and will change the stock pedals out to the ones I like.