Exercise Bike

This article is a review on Schwinn 113 Exercise Bike. The reason why I’m review Schwinn 113 on one article is because of the huge demand by people for a more in depth review. The review will cover things such as the parts quality, user friendliness, and any problems that I face when testing the Schwinn 113 for 1 month.

Sensor Problem

First of all I would like to say that the 113 is not my favorite bike to review despite its price but the 113 definitely has some features and things I like about it. Make the decision on your own choice because in the end the 113 is manufactured in a third world country where there are a lot of cheap labors.

The first problem that I face from the 113 is inaccurate speed reported on the LCD screen which in turn will produce inaccurate miles traveled. If you just want to exercise for fun and couldn’t care less about the distance and speed then this is not a problem for you. For those wondering, this is a fairly common problem with the 113 because I called Schwinn’s customer support told me so.

However you can fix this yourself by realigning the sensor back to where it should be which I just an inch or two depending on how bad it is. I won’t bore you with details on how to fix the problem here because it’ll be a lot easier for you if you can talk to a customer support directly. (It’s not a simple 3 to 5 steps fix we’re talking about here)

Miscellaneous Problems

I have also inspected the 113 and I would say that I’m not satisfied with the paint job as it’s a bit clunky. Many might not find this to be the case if you don’t look for it so it’s not such a big deal; I just want to point it out for the perfectionist among us.  The wires also look cheap but this is no indicator that it is of low quality.

Update: I ship the 113 to my parents and after one year of usage they told me that the 113 is broken. Apparently there’s an error message on the screen and nothing seems to work. ( its an E - 2 message) I called the customer support and they told me that it’s a fairly common problem and that I need to re-assemble everything back! Well if I have the time and care to travel 200 miles back to my parents home and spend some time re-assembling everything I would do it but I don’t! so forget it I’m just going to send my parents a new exercise bike.

Here’s the Good Part

Despite all my complains about the 113, it’s actually a great bike that runs smoothly (other than the two hair pulling problem above of course) and has great features. One of it is the magnetic resistance which makes cycling on it so much more pleasurable and peaceful, (my mom actually said that) why? Because its quiet unlike exercise bikes that uses chain and other resistance technology.

The LCD display is easy to the eyes and big enough for my aging parents to actually see without wearing glasses. Another interesting feature on the LCD is the backlit feature which actually helps my parents to see even better with their aging eyes.

It also has tons of workout programs with the body mass index (BMI) calculator together with it. The best thing is it has a heart rate monitor that adjusts the resistance (which the 113 has plenty of – sixteen to be exact) according to your desired heart rate. (you set this up before you start exercising) This is great for those who want an optimal exercise. There are tons of features that I have left unsaid like the reading rack, Bio- Fit saddle (very comfortable), easy storage system and etc but those above are the best features on the 113.

Conclusion

If what I’ve said doesn’t impress you then I doubt telling you about the rest of the not so important features will. The conclusion is get the 113 but make sure you have checked the machine throughout for the RPM sensor error. (Pedal as fast as you can and if the RPM stuck on certain speed then it’s spoiled)