Many of us have a bike that we don’t need. If you do not need it, then this is not a reason to get rid of it, because you can make an exercise bike out of a bicycle with your own hands. Further in the article, we will precisely address this issue and try to cover it in as much detail as possible. In fact, everything seems more complicated than it actually turns out. Doing an inexpensive exercise bike from a bicycle with your own hands is quite simple, you just need a desire, free time and the necessary tool.
Relevance
The cheapest exercise bike in a sports equipment store will cost more than five thousand rubles. The cost of making the simplest exercise bike for your home from your bike is unlikely to exceed one thousand rubles. The money savings are colossal and obvious.
disadvantages
First, let’s say that an exercise bike made of a bicycle with your own hands will be inferior to factory analogues at some points. For some people, these shortcomings are not critical, but in any case you need to know about them:
- A prefabricated exercise bike is more reliable, even if we consider the most budget models.
- Convenience of a saddle on a factory simulator significantly exceeds the same parameter of a classic bicycle saddle. But this point is not critical, since the saddle can always be changed to one that suits you best.
- A do-it-yourself exercise bike from a bicycle loses to the factory counterpart in stability.
- The simplest exercise bike that you do yourself will not have load options. But there is an option to make an exercise bike out of a bicycle with your own hands with a load. This, although more complicated, but real, you will learn about this later.
Now is the time to talk about making a home exercise bike. We will consider two types of device.
The first view is on a stand
This is the most elementary option; it does not require any significant time or money costs from you. To implement this type of design, you only need to make a stand out of wood. But if you have access to welding equipment, then you can make a stand out of metal. Consider a tree option.
Take thick boards (the thickness of the board is at least 25 millimeters), from them you need to make something like a rectangle or square that rests on the floor with its edges. The size of the base of the workpiece is slightly larger than the rear wheel of your unnecessary bike, which we turn into an exercise bike. In the end, you get a pretty stable design.
Now go to the side parts of the stand. Take two boards, they will be mounted vertically to two opposite side parts of the base, which we have already made. After you fix the racks and the base, in the upper part of the racks you will need to make a small cut - a recess. He is needed in order to install pegs.
Now we will make the pegs themselves, which are steel flasks. They can be seen on BMX class bikes. On such bicycles, they are intended for a person to put their feet on them when he performs some kind of trick. In our case, there will be no tricks, and pegs are needed to support the bike on our stand.
You can buy ready made in a specialized bicycle store at a relatively low price. But you can make them yourself from a pipe. Practice shows that buying is much simpler and more reliable than their self-made home.
Pegs need to be mounted on the rear axle of an old bicycle. Then you can put the wheel in a specially made grooves, recesses, and it will be hung over the floor. We can say that the bike exercise bike with your own hands is almost ready. It remains only to fix the entire structure to avoid any tilting. Although your bike with such a stand for the rear wheel may well stand upright, leaning on its front wheel.
Advantages and disadvantages of such a design
From the pros, you can highlight the simplicity of creating an exercise bike out of a bicycle with your own hands according to this scheme. Among the minuses, we highlight the fact that in this case it is impossible to somehow realize the load system.
With this type of manufacture of the simulator, absolutely anyone can handle it. Such a device can be placed, for example, on a balcony or loggia. It is convenient and practical.
The second type is the roller track
This option is more difficult to implement, but it is more advanced. This exercise bike from an old bicycle is sometimes also called a bicycle machine. To implement the idea requires more time and materials.
You will need to buy:
- Thick boards for the base (no thinner than 25 millimeters).
- Suitable screws for assembly.
- The necessary bearings.
- Various pins and other elements for bushings.
- Thick-walled PVC pipes (for rollers). They can be replaced with metal analogues.
The base is a rectangular frame, which in its size will be slightly smaller than the length of your bike. Next, you need to make the rollers, this must be done so that they have side bushes. To do this, you can use, for example, pins. They can be installed in grooves that are made on the sides of the frame.
Next, you need to install the clips correctly. The rear wheels must be set so that the distance between them corresponds to the normal rotation and stability of the rear wheel.
The front roller of the structure is located almost at the very front edge of the wooden frame - this is necessary to stop the front wheel. One of the advantages of this type of simulator lies in the fact that it is possible to immediately establish a load control mechanism.
This design also has a drawback - you need to somehow solve the issue of the stability of the bike-exercise bike. When you start training on such a simulator, you need to catch the balance and adjust it using the steering wheel. If you actively pedal, the balance will be more difficult to maintain.
It is easier and more correct to make additional side supports for the resulting cycle machine.
How to create a load?
We considered how to make a home-made exercise bike out of a bicycle with our own hands, now it’s time to talk about the load system for such a simulator. If you need results from such training, you need to make some version of increasing the load:
- This can be achieved by weighting the rear wheel. For this, weights are evenly fixed on it.
- You can make special pinch rollers. You can make them yourself, or you can buy a ready-made version (they are inexpensive). These rollers are attached to the bottom of the rear wheel and provide mechanical friction. It is the load.
- An electric generator is the most difficult, but also the most interesting option. You need a car generator and the same pinch rollers, which we mentioned above. By collecting rollers with the generator in one mechanism, you can both train with the load and generate electricity through your workouts. That's how a healthy lifestyle can be easily combined with getting free electricity.
If you go even further, you can connect your generator to the battery and store the generated electricity. This is an even more convenient option, for the implementation of such a scheme you only need to buy an appropriate type of battery and wires for connecting the battery and generator.
DIY exercise bike bike: drawings
We give an example of a drawing that will help you make the exercise bike correctly. It is not necessary to fully adhere to this scheme. It is not ideal, it is possible that you will draw something from it for yourself, and you will think up something yourself, making the final result more perfect.
DIY exercise bike bike: photo
Pictures of the end result can help you in the process. But striving to fully achieve what is depicted on them is not necessary, because this is only the end result of someone’s efforts. It is possible that your exercise bike will not look like the one you see in the picture, but it will be better and more perfect. A photo is only needed to roughly represent what you are doing.
Total
Making your own exercise bike out of an unnecessary bike is not so difficult. It should be noted that the whole process is saving space in your apartment. After all, keeping a bicycle and an exercise bike is rather inconvenient. And if your two-wheeled friend is able to turn into an exercise bike and vice versa - this is ideal for not the most spacious apartments of most urban residents of Russia.