Don’t miss out on the opportunity to see the RealRyder Stationary Bike at the CanFitPro Trade Show in Toronto, where you can see all the latest fitness equipment!

This is a very popular show, with approximately 10,000 visitors expected. In addition to seeing the hottest trends in fitness equipment, you will also have the choice of hundreds of educational workshops, workouts and lectures.

Douglas Brooks will be presenting and heavily involved with RealRyder Indoor Cycling at the show. So come and try our moving stationary bike which has revolutionized indoor cycling fitness equipment!

We will also be joined at the CanFitPro Show by our friends from Spin Kicks! We recently featured Spin Kicks Fitness Studio a RealRyder Indoor Cycling Studio run by Angela and Sandro Scarsellone in Vaughan, near Toronto.

In addition to their indoor cycling classes they also offer Anaerobic Threshold testing and Maximum Aerobic Power (MAP) testing!

They also teach Taekwon-Do to a very high level!

The CanFitPro Trade Show is from August 11 to 15, 2010

Metro Toronto Convention Centre
255 Front St. West
Toronto, ON

For more information on this exciting show click on the CanFitPro Website for full details.

We hope to see you in Toronto where you can experience the unique ride of our leaning stationary bike for yourself and see why it is creating such a buzz in the fitness equipment world!

Is it just me or do you get more motivated to ride when the Tour de France is on? It doesn’t matter whether it’s on the road or indoor cycling, I always seem to find that inspiration to ride more when the Tour is on!

Checking around the country a number of the RealRyder Indoor Cycling Studios have also been tapping into this inspirational energy source! Take a look at the RealRyder Facebook page to see who is running Tour de France based indoor cycling classes!

One of the biggest challenges for indoor cycling instructors is keeping their classes fresh and stimulating. And no we are not talking about some of the odd “non-cycling” moves that are creeping into some spin classes. We do not advocate doing weight training, suspension training or extreme body positions during an indoor cycling class! Before or after your ride, fine, but NOT on the bike! We believe in sticking with proven training principles, not gimmicks or fads that increase the risk of injury (especially with newcomers to indoor cycling), without any clear training benefit.

From the feedback we get it is clear that using a RealRyder stationary bike is one of the best ways of making an indoor cycling class both fun and challenging, without having to resort to gimmicks or circus stunts! The main reason for this, is that you will naturally be moving much more to lean and steer a RealRyder stationary bike, than you would be on a traditional spinning bike. The idea behind the articulating frame was to try to make indoor cycling more realistic and feel more like riding a real bike.

So it follows, that if you want to ride “with” the top professionals during an indoor cycling class and match what they do in the Tour it helps to have a better bike simulator. You already have a motivational piece of fitness equipment and now you are adding that extra inspiration.

A great example of this came from Sweat Therapy in Tallahassee and if you click their logo it will take you through to their Facebook page.

Read the link and blogpost from Kiki Cecchetti. Kiki is a Sweat Therapy client from Belgium who clearly has a passion for cycling and brilliantly captures the spirit of what a “Tour de France Indoor Cycling Class” is all about!

The Sweat Therapy team even keep the riders supplied with drinks and food, like the best Tour domestiques! This really is as close as you can get to the Tour de France while indoor cycling! Great inspiration – can you smell the sunflowers?

We have been talking a lot recently about the importance of fun fitness equipment. Fitness equipment you look forward to using, rather than something that is boring to use and becomes a chore!

So we were delighted that Lori Corbin of KABC-TV Los Angeles reviewed two exciting pieces of cardio fitness equipment that help to keep us all stimulated and really enjoying our workouts!

The KABC segment ”2 New Machines to get you Crazy for Cardio” featured the Helix Lateral Trainer and the RealRyder Stationary Bike! Lori started off by rightly mentioning that always doing the treadmill or elliptical can get monotonous! She then introduced both companies with a demo of each piece of fitness equipment.

Colin Irving our CEO and designer of the RealRyder Stationary bike was on hand to highlight some of the key features and benefits of our unique indoor bike, in particular how it more closely resembles a real bike than a standard rigid indoor bike does.

To quote Colin:

“There’s a constant core engagement activation – all of your stabilizer muscles in your legs. You burn about 20 percent more calories even at moderate workloads”

“We can turn, we can lean, and work on our functional training and our balance and coordination. You’re not locked in one position, you’re not on a rigid, fixed, static piece of equipment. The bike is constantly floating”

So if you are getting bored with the fitness equipment you are using, take a serious look at our stationary bike! Do you feel like a hamster on the wheel as you watch the minutes slowly count down on the treadmill, then try a RealRyder Indoor Cycling Class and watch an hour fly by!

Monotony and boredom won’t just ”curb your enthusiasm”, it can kill it!  We all need stimulation, excitement and fun or to quote KABC let’s “get you crazy for cardio”! Attached is the KABC video 2 New Machines to get you Crazy for Cardio and a full transcript of their report.

All fitness equipment is not the same, so do your body and your mind a big favor and take your cardio workouts to a new level with the unique RealRyder Stationary Bike! It makes indoor cycling more fun, encourages you to workout more and produces great results!

The indoor cycling equipment sector has become a broad category and includes several sub-sectors of cycling related training or fitness equipment.

Spinning bikes or spin bikes have become very popular with thousands of indoor cycling or spin classes worldwide. The names “Spinning Bike” and “Spin Bike” are both trademarks, but are used generically by many people when they are referring to group indoor cycling bikes.

Exercise bike is a term used for indoor bikes that are used in gyms and as home fitness equipment. They tend to be more upright and built for comfort, not performance or high intensity training.

Then we have the indoor bike trainers, which are used with a real bike to create an indoor training tool. There are a huge range of these trainers, going from simple fans which attach to the rear of the bike and are driven by the rear wheel to computerized models with varying resistance and power measurement. You can also use cycling rollers, where the bike is free standing on what is effectively a rolling road.

What is the best type of fitness equipment for indoor cycling? All of the above options have some limitations. Apart from the cycling rollers none of these bikes move, so you are riding a rigid set up that does not feel much like a real bike. The rollers only allow you to move from side to side and you cannot really lean the bike. Also most rollers only have light resistance, so they are good for cadence, but not so good for developing strength or power. Bike trainers can suffer from a lack of stability if you make aggressive out of the saddle efforts.

One other piece of fitness equipment you should consider is the RealRyder stationary bike. Our indoor bike is unique due to its articulating frame which enables the bike to turn and lean, making it a much more realistic bike simulator.

Not only does it feel different to other indoor bikes, it also helps you train differently! You will recruit more muscles on a RealRyder stationary bike, effectively training your upper body, arms and core muscles in addition to legs and lungs.

So if you are looking for the most realistic piece of indoor cycling fitness equipment take a good look at the RealRyder moving stationary bike! It will spice up your training and make indoor cycling more fun, whether you are looking for home fitness equipment or the best bike for an indoor cycling class!

Can the fitness equipment you use help to motivate you? Absolutely! Or to put it another way if your fitness equipment doesn’t motivate you, you won’t use it!

One of the most important things with any training program is consistency. Regular training takes motivation and the fitness equipment you use can play a big part in this.

Let me give you two examples. Last year my local gym had old worn out spinning bikes. The resistance was not smooth anymore, the handlbars and seat adjustments all had play in them, and all the bikes were creaking! I only went to these spin classes as a last resort, as frankly they weren’t much fun to ride. It wasn’t just me either, the attendance at these spin classes had dropped every year as their fitness equipment got more and more tired!

They put in new RealRyder stationary bikes last winter and indoor cycling was fun again. The new indoor bikes didn’t just work better because they were new, the RealRyder stationary bikes were clearly an upgrade over the old spinning bikes (even if they had still been in good condition). Training on a RealRyder uses more muscles than a regular spinning bike, because it tilts and turns, but this feature also makes the RealRyder much more fun and stimulating to ride! The result of this upgraded fitness equipment? I was motivated to take more indoor cycling classes and judging by the attendances, so were many others!

The second example is an abs machine we bought years ago, which turned out to awkward to use and not that well made. According to the TV ad it made sit ups easier to do and less stressful on the spine and neck. In reality it didn’t do either and got little use as a result. A clear example of fitness equipment that doesn’t motivate you to use it!

One other factor to consider here is the length of time you might want to spend using any piece of fitness equipment. How long can you stand on fitness equipment that is uncomfortable and/or boring?! You have probably read the story of Adam Reid recently doing 8 hours on our stationary bike at a charity event at Sweat Therapy and maybe thought he’s a fitness pro and paid by RealRyder anyway! So is that really relevant to me? Well yes, it is relevant, Adam didn’t have to be on the bike for the whole eight hours! He could have alternated with the other instructors, so if nothing else it proves a RealRyder stationary bike is comfortable enough if you want to ride for eight hours!

Perhaps a better example is the number of clients who regularly do back to back indoor cycling classes at RealRyder studios. Two hours of indoor cycling on a stationary bike? To me that proves that this really is “Motivational Fitness Equipment”!