FlexiSpot Exercise Bikes review

Ever fancied an exercise bike, but never find the time to get moving during the day once you’ve finished your commute or made it upstairs to the home office?

The Flexispot Under Desk Bike lets you exercise while you’re sat working or watching TV and a model with an integrated desk means you can work and cycle anywhere.

Sat at home or in the office, it’s often difficult to keep active. One moment you’ve just sat down to work, the next, it’s two hours later and your behind hasn’t left your chair.

It’s recommended that you try to get up and walk at least 250 steps each hour.

Sitting raises your risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Excessive sitting slows the metabolism, which affects our ability to regulate blood sugar and blood pressure, as well as metabolise fat.

In the 1950s, researchers found that bus drivers were twice as likely to have heart attacks as their bus conductor colleagues. The drivers sat for 90 percent of their shifts, while the conductors climbed about 600 stairs every day.

Activity trackers and smartwatches can alert you that you haven’t moved in an hour, but then what do you do? Get up, and walk around the room. Get yourself a healthy glass of water or an energising cup of coffee. That’s probably about 100 steps, and while that’s better than being sat on your bottom for another two hours, it’s not going to get your muscles working or the calories from that sandwich burned off.

Check out our list of recommended activity trackers, including the best Fitbits.

An excellent way to keep fit is cycling, which stimulates and improves your heart, lungs and circulation, and reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases. It strengthens your heart muscles, lowers resting pulse and reduces blood fat levels.

This is one reason why exercise bikes are proving so popular, with more of us stuck at home.

There are plenty of regular exercise bikes on the market (read our advice on where to buy home exercise equipment), but not many of them are designed especially for a work environment.

The Flexispot Under Desk Bike V9U (above left), which we tested, is built specially for height-adjustable standing desks – but can work just as well in front of a TV screen.

The Flexispot Deskcise Pro (above right) features its own adjustable desk to fit your laptop, tablet, newspaper or book. When not cycling you can get in front of it and use it as a standing desk.

Each bike features eight resistance levels (level 8 is the toughest), so you can pedal as hard or as lightly as you prefer – handy for the less fit or able.

An integrated LCD screen lets you track time, distance, speed, RPM, and calories burned. You can also set a timer. This part takes two AA batteries, but the rest is powered by you.

I tried cycling on the Under Desk Bike while tracking the exercise on my Fitbit, but – as I wasn’t actually getting anywhere – it sadly didn’t count on my fitness tracker.

Flexispot suggests you can create a bank of its Deskcise Pro bikes to hold energetic meetings. After all, exercise is meant to be a creativity booster. We’re not sure it will exactly match social-distancing rules, but you can space them out, and just talk a bit louder!

The padded seat is large, comfortable and adjustable (pneumatically), and is on autolocking casters so you can move it around the home or office.

It’s super quiet – as long as you’re not puffing too hard – so you won’t disturb others in the same room.

Each bike is suitable for people 5’1″ to 6’2″ in height.

Remember that the V9U is made for adjustable-height desks. While it will roll the front end under most desks, you can’t actually pedal it under a standard-height desk.

However, you can use either bike at work (but not under a normal desk) or just watching TV – maybe a precondition for kids who want to spend all their time in front of a screen.

Available from Amazon UK or Amazon US, or direct in the UK or US.