Exercise Bike

Overview

An exercise bike is a stationary trainer that reproduces the pedaling motion of cycling with a heavy flywheel and adjustable resistance. This is a "smart" studio bike: a perimeter-weighted Flywheel & Resistance Unit gives a road-like inertial feel, an electronically controlled magnetic brake sets the load, and a touchscreen Console streams instructor-led classes and logs cadence, power, and heart rate. The machine is built for sustained seated and standing efforts with no impact on the joints.

The bike sits on a welded Steel Frame with front and rear stabilizers, leveling feet, and transport wheels. The rider interfaces through an adjustable Seat Assembly and a multi-grip Handlebar Assembly with contact heart-rate pads, and pedals the Drivetrain that turns the flywheel.

How it works

The crankset drives the flywheel through a Drivetrain poly-V belt rather than a chain, running quiet and maintenance-free on sealed bottom- bracket bearings. Resistance is applied by the Flywheel & Resistance Unit unit, whose magnetic sub-assembly swings a carrier of neodymium magnets toward the rim. A stepper motor and leadscrew position that carrier under console control, giving 100 micro-steps of eddy- current braking; a manual knob provides a mechanical override.

The Console is effectively a tablet: an LCD with a touch digitizer, a SoC mainboard, stereo speakers, and a backup battery pack so a class is not lost on a power blip. A Hall-effect cadence sensor reads a magnet on the flywheel to compute speed and, combined with the known resistance, estimate power output. WiFi and Bluetooth link the bike to the class platform and to wearable heart-rate straps.