Vision Fitness E3700HRT Review

The quality of exercise bikes sure does vary a lot. Some are sturdily built, have good features, and are comfortable to use. Others are kind of junky and make you want to flee the exercise room for a big bowl of ice cream! Fortunately the Vision Fitness exercise bikes in the workout room of my apartment complex are all on the good side.

I most often use the Vision Fitness upright exercise bike model E3700HRT. This exercise bike has a variety of programming features which allow you to easily vary your workout and keep track (if you want to) statistics related to your routine. The continual-feedback console clearly labels several steps needed to program the machine, such as: Choosing the type of workout you want, level of difficulty, your weight, and length of exercise time.

The type of workout chosen will vary the machines mechanisms. For example, if you chose a 'Hill' workout (which I like the best) the difficulty of pedaling will vary up and down, as if you were riding through hills.  The difficulty of the routine is displayed in a bar graph format on the console. There is also a heart-monitor routine which requires the rider to hold pulse sensitive hard grips or use a heart monitor attachment.

As you ride the console will display how many calories burned, heart rate (if using that feature), distance pedaled in miles, Watts, time remaining, and RPMs. What's nice is you can choose any of these data to measure the effectiveness of your routine. I most often look at miles pedaled or calories burned, but for cardio training the heart rate may be most important.

The Vision Fitness upright exercise bike model E3700HRT has a Comfort-Arc Seat, which is easily adjusted for height. I really like the handlebars, which are coated with dense foam, offer two positions to grip, and also have elbow rests. There are also metal grips with pulse rate sensors imbedded, which I use occasionally. The pedals have straps which are a little hard to adjust, but worth using. My only complaint is that the machine rocks just a little bit when you are pedaling harder. The front foot is only about 2 feet across, so maybe that could be wider for more stability.

This piece of exercise equipment is made for home use, but the manufacturer says it is also suitable for commercial use (like in health clubs).  Surfing the web I saw prices of around $1,800 for the Vision Fitness E3700HRT. This particular bike will hold up to a 400 pound individual, which is a higher maximum weight than many machines allow for.  Overall I think this exercise bike is solidly built, has a nice variety of workout routines, and is comfortable to ride due to the combination of a good seat, easy-to-grip handlebars, and a clear, concise console that produces lots of helpful workout information.