My roommate, James, and I have been talking about how out of shape we both are. We both realized how bad our cardio was and James also thought he could lose a few pounds. We talked for months about it, but finally decided to do something to change the situation, so we went to Walmart and bought an exercise bike. Why a bike? Well, for me, I’ve always been a fan of bike riding in the summer, so this felt like a natural extension of that love and a great way of keeping me on my workout routine.

We had a limited budget to work with, so Walmart made the most sense, even if I’m not a fan of them. James and I both wanted a recumbent bike for the obvious comfort reasons, but settled on a nicely priced upright. The bike isn’t super high end, but it does the job and, during my first two workouts, I’ve had my ass handed to me. The thing I like most about it is the set of 8 preset workout routines that automatically adjust the resistance over a period of 20 or 30 minutes. These presets push me harder than I would, otherwise, push myself if I had to manually choose the resistance. Here’s hoping I find the strength to keep this all going and finally get back to the shape I used to be in.

As a side story, we also bought a scale in Walmart after our other one broke a few months back. We found a nice little digital scale for $18 and put it in the cart. Unfortunately, we were so wrapped up in getting the bike to fit in the car, that none of us (our girlfriends came with us) thought to take the bag out of the cart and into the car. I hope whoever found it is enjoying the damn thing.