Forget Peloton. All you need to get pedaling is this $140 under-desk bike.

Essentials Week spotlights unexpected items that make our daily lives just a little bit better.

By now it’s too easy to dunk on the dystopian holiday ad for the high-tech exercise bike Peloton. The tale of an already fit woman vlogging her way through early morning sessions to lose a couple of pounds over a year went viral for all the wrong reasons, and now the CEO won’t even mention it. I’ll simply note that the Peloton backlash has been a long time coming. 

More power to you if a $2,200 stationary bike, plus $40 a month for spin-class videoconferencing, has turbo-charged your morning exercise routine. If so, you’re part of a select elite. I’m willing to bet more purchasers have rejected the concept once reality sank in. Just try searching eBay for “Peloton Bike, rarely used” — now there’s a Hemingway-esque four-word short story.

You don’t need an exercise bike with a HD video screen. Heck, you don’t even need a whole exercise bike, or even a morning workout routine. It is possible to pedal away the pounds while at work, sitting at your desk. All you need is a set of pedals with built-in resistance, which turns your regular office chair into a subtle kind of bike — all for a fraction of the cost of the Peloton. 

Pedals of power

I stumbled across the “under-desk bike” category of workout equipment earlier this year, while looking for a replacement for my LifeSpan treadmill desk. I still love the LifeSpan, and still love the idea of treadmill desks, as I wrote when I reviewed it seven years ago. Walking while working is an excellent way to build lots of exercise into your day, without even realizing it. It stops you from just sitting, which is killing us, and one study says it can literally make you smarter. 

Ultimately, the problem with the treadmill desk was that I could only walk (usually at about a mile an hour, a very easy pace) while doing regular computer tasks. Pointing, clicking, reading, quick email replies: no problem. But if I had to write more than a paragraph at a time, the urge to stop the machine so I could hear myself think would often become overwhelming. 

Was there, I wondered, any kind of in-office exercise  so simple that you can keep doing it while writing a whole story? It would have to involve a kind of motion that is even easier than walking, less impactful, more automatic … like pedaling a bike, in fact.

There are a bunch of exercise bikes designed for the office, with a desk built in. But what if you already have a desk? What if you prefer your current seat to a saddle? What if you don’t crave the performative aspect of pedaling away while co-workers laugh and make Peloton jokes behind your back? Then you need a subtle, whisper-quiet, under-desk pedal machine like the one I opted for, the Exerpeutic 900. 

The Exerpeutic is slimmer than its under-desk rivals, but I chose it for one simple reason: It boasts an extendable hook. So if you have an office chair that rolls around, which these days is most of them, you can tuck one of the chair’s casters into the hook and stop your impromptu bike seat rolling away from its pedals. (For those on hardwood floors, you’ll also need some sort of floor mat to stop the pedals from moving around over time; I like the jigsaw-style exercise foam mat.)  

Now when I sit down in my office chair, I don’t even think about it. My feet slide under the straps and into the pedals automatically, and they just start slowly pedaling of their own accord. You can twist the tension dial on the Exerpeutic between 1 and 14; I like starting in the 8-10 range and inching it up. 

With the chair adjusted to the right height and a comfortable cushion under my butt (I use the inflatable “wobble” cushion that gently engages your core), the first few pedals are just nice leg stretches. My knees pop into place and I feel like I’m visiting a lower-body chiropractor. 

Thus warmed up, the only encouragement I need to really get moving is to select some good pedaling tunes. Sometimes they come to you. Watching the Wonder Woman 1984 trailer at my desk, my feet began pedaling fast — again, almost of their own accord. It turns out that New Order’s Blue Monday (used to such great effect in the trailer) has, at 130 BPM, a really good cycling cadence. 

So I wrote most of this story while listening to every version of Blue Monday available on Spotify. I’m not tired of it yet. The pedaling hasn’t quit and my heart is pumping happily away — albeit slower than the song, in the 90 to 100 BPM range, according to my Apple Watch.

That settles the question of whether it’s possible to write and work out at the same time. I’m not going to break much of a sweat, or break any personal bests with my heart rate in that range, but that’s not what we’re going for here. With desk-based exercise, the key is to find something that is sustainable over the long haul. 

At 100 BPM and my age and weight, according to online calculators, I’m burning up to 500 calories an hour that I would not otherwise have burned. That’s more than I’d get out of a good half-hour run. Sure, you’re not going to remember to pedal all the time, but an hour a day is easy to achieve if you’re breaking it down into 5 or 10 minute increments.

Some Exerpeutic users report that they like to use it in front of the couch while watching films. I have not gone that far, but the device features a sturdy handle and weighs around 25 pounds, so it’s not too hard to bring from the home office into the den when you’re done for the day. 

The Exerpeutic does connect via Bluetooth to an app, MyCloud Fitness, the interface of which looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2012. The app records your speed, distance, revolutions per minute (generally about half of the BPM of the song you’re cycling to), and calories burned. I find it a distraction from the simple pleasures of pedaling, but your mileage may vary.

I haven’t used it to replace running, my main form of exercise, but the under-desk bike is great backup. On days when I’m too busy or too lazy or it’s too cold outside to strap on sneakers, I can relax, secure in the knowledge I will still get my blood pumping. 

And I don’t look too ridiculous doing it, either; if you couldn’t see under my desk, you’d just assume I was moving my shoulders around slightly while typing. The pedals make zero noise, even at speed. 

In other words, nobody would compare this thing to a Peloton — and that’s probably for the best. You can just enjoy your exercise without making a big old sweaty performance of it. No vlogging required.