The Gym Arcade 143
theodp writes "Cross Halo with an exercise bike, and you get Expresso Fitness' S3, which lets you blow away dragons by squeezing handlebar-mounted triggers as you pedal hard through the Chinese countryside. Portfolio notes that a new generation of Wii-like workouts is hitting gyms and homes, with companies like GameRunner incorporating treadmills into First Person Shooters and Kickstart offering mini steppers and cycles for popular game systems."
Expresso S3 review (I've used one) (Score:5, Informative)
We have one of these at work, and we're expecting another. It's a blast. And I'm not a gamer.
First, the downsides:
1) The shifter is not very well designed. It's a single lever mounted on the stem, which is an inconvenient spot. With 30 "gears" and very sharp changes of gradient, it's not uncommon to have to shift by 10 gears or more in a matter of seconds to avoid stalling out. The shifting doesn't seem all that responsive either, so there's a tendency to overshift, which usually leaves you moving too slowly. I'd rather have two shifters mounted on the bars, with the left shifter giving you 3-5 gears in one shot (i. e. something like front and rear derailleurs on a "real" bike). This is by far the weakest part of the setup. If they would fix that, it would be a much stronger product.
2) Every course I've tried has at least one very sharp downhill curve, which I find disorienting (maybe because I'm not a gamer). Shutting my eyes helps, but then I don't know what terrain is coming up, so I'm likely to be in the wrong gear in a hurry. One person at the gym tried it once and found that he just couldn't use it because of that.
3) The saddle simply isn't very good. It's adjustable in maybe 1/2" increments both vertically and front to back (which is OK for this purpose, but finer increments would be better). However, it's a wide, heavily cushioned saddle, which really isn't very comfortable for long rides. It would be nice if there were a couple of different saddles to pick from, and you could just plunk down the one you like at any given time. It's a much better saddle than the usual exercise bike saddle, but that's not saying much.
Good points:
1) There's just a lot more variety than any other exercise bike I've seen (not that I'm an expert). The changing terrain makes things interesting, much more so than any standard programs. That's a huge plus.
2) The pedals are "real", with toe clips on one side (yes, the old fashioned kind, but they work) and clip-in pedals on the other. I'm not sure which clip-in system; it's obviously one of the SPD variants, but I don't know which one. If your bike shoes have a different system, it's not likely to work. The system looks like it doesn't have any side to side or rotational play, which makes it hard for some folks (when I was riding, I absolutely needed that because of my overpronation and toe-out).
3) There's a good range of courses, everything from a 1 mile flat track course to a 20 miler that looks like a major mountain pass. They're divided into four groups (plus one more "ride over the monsters" type thing), for easy, moderate, hard, and extreme, and ranked from easy to harder within the groups. The pace rider rides slower on the easy ones and harder on the hard ones, and you can adjust the continuous output of the pace rider. There are a few courses that aren't available without a paid membership, but it's not worth $10 a month just to get those few courses.
4) The bike can be connected to the internet, with some additional features (I don't know what they all are; ours isn't connected yet).
Neutral points:
1) While your avatar responds to the steering, it doesn't really affect the riding in any way, except on the game course. It won't let you go off the course (if you try to steer off, or don't try to steer on, it just keeps you at the side of the course). You can also ride right through other riders, and they can ride through you if you're slower. It doesn't really feel natural, but without actual movement, it would be very hard to make the steering feel natural. I don't care all that much.
2) I don't know how it computes the relationship between wattage (power output) and calorie consumption. It gives me somewhat lower calorie numbers compared to the other exercise bikes we have, which may or may not be due to shifting response (it's easy to not shift high enough on downhills). For a 30~40 minute ride, I've averaged 227~240 watts vs. 235~260 that I typically average on the
Re:Do people really use these, on a regular basis? (Score:3, Informative)
Hey,
I ride my road bike around a lot. Due to that fact that I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the weather almost always allows bicycling as a means of transportation, I have been able to keep my goal of going through one tank of gas per month on my SUV. I'm also fairly into mountain biking, with the beautiful foot hills available for single track and Sandia mountain available for downhill riding.
So, I'm pretty into biking. The goal of the above was to add SOME level of credibility to the below...
I tried Expresso at the University of New Mexico gym and it was not that cool. I'm not certain what model I was on, or what levels were loaded but it definitely did not have triggers on the handlebars for shooting anything. It has about 15 boring levels involving riding around a race track. I thought the most interesting was "campus loop." At first, I was excited under the hope that collisions would recoil and there would be rumble strips build into various locations around the bike. Unfortunately, whenever I ran into something I just ghosted through it.
The gearing mechanism was pretty cool. Most of the time exercise bikes don't respond realistically at all to gearing, but the Expresso model I was on did more so than anything else I've been on. The lact of collisions, off-roading, and angry taunts from the nonexistent collisions were probably my three main criticisms.
Basically, I think I was disappointed by how cool the Expresso I was on COULD have been, but wasn't. Then again, the University did not provide ANY internet connectivity for the Expresso and probably didn't have the latest and greatest model. If I could race against people from around the U.S, interacting in a fun way, I think Expresso would have been cool as I tried it. Stand-alone, it was pretty boring.
-Brian J. Stinar-
Re:An idea (Score:2, Informative)
Check this out: http://www.tacxvr.com/ [tacxvr.com]
Makes indoor cycling at home almost bearable. I say almost because I have such a rig but I never use it, I prefer to cycle outdoors or in a spin class.
Lot of people enjoy it though. Here in Norway there is a winter series on these contraptions where people compete in a mix of VR terrains and Real Life Videos.
Accurate as usual (Score:4, Informative)
I see Slashdot is showing its attention to journalistic accuracy. I've actually *played* Expresso bike thing and you don't "gun down" dragons with "handle-bar mounted triggers".
The buttons are the handle-bars are for shifting gears. The basic gameplay is that you run over coins of various colors and then have to go run into dragons of the matching color. (With various point values.) It's a pretty lame game, but it is mildly distracting.
I suspect that most people will stick to the basic "ride around a track with a pace rider" bit, which is decent enough.
The biggest problem is that even if you play at a machine in the gym, you still have to shell out $9.95/month to unlock a lot of the tracks. That's a pretty hefty price for a bike-racing game.
Re:lmao (Score:3, Informative)
That's a super idea, Hojima.
I've got a full-time job, a wife, and two kids. I scuba dive, play in a concert band, and play DnD once a week.
When, exactly, would I go out and join a soccer team? During naptime for the toddlers? In the evenings, when it's one of the rare days when neither my wife nor I are going out so we can spend some time together? Sure, I can bike to work, but I'm the one who drops the kids off at daycare. That means either using a trailer (sunny and warm days only) or biking when daycare's not in session.
Bring the Wii Fit into the equation, and I'm down 15 pounds. I can get a good set of cardio and strength work while the kids are napping or asleep.
Seriously, some people simply can't go outside some days.
Re:lmao (Score:2, Informative)
Re:lmao (Score:2, Informative)
Re:lmao (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, what he said....now, I do not have kids, but I have a spouse and a cat -- both of which need attention -- a job that requires me to travel about 60% of the year and I teach scuba diving on the side. In short, I spent plenty of time outside of the house already, and joining a soccer or other team sport team would be just impossible: I'd not be able to be there regularly due to an unpredictable travel-schedule, and so I'd make a horrible team-mate (not to mention, I'm a horrible soccer-player to begin with, making me even more of a boat-anchor for a soccer-team) and, frankly, what evenings/weekends I do have left, I'd rather spend with the spouse and the cat, than with a bunch of sweaty 40-something men chasing a ball.....
The nearest gym is about an hour away from where we live, btw., so one hour of workout would "cost" 3 hours of wall-clock-time. Just not cost-efficient.
Wanting to stay in relatively good health, we set aside a room in our house, and rebuilt into a gym -- principally a treadmill and some other exercise machines, and a wall-mounted TV. It allows - as notes Beardo the Bearded - that whenever either of us have got an hour available, we can get some exercise in without having to commit to trekking to the nearest gym. Often, it's of the form "hey, I was home first tonight, I'll toss the roast in the oven, then do an hour on the 'mill and some back-strengthening workout", and concurrently keeping up with what's wrong with the world on the TV.
We've got a WiiFit as well, and while that's great fun, I do not get the same "sweat" out of it nor do I manage to get my heart-rate high enough and exercise/strengthen my back. It's great for its Yoga-exercises, and a fun thing to do together (although, it'd have been cool had the WiiFit allowed for easier alternations between two players exercising together).
Anyways, when we were acquiring the treadmill, we were looking to see if there were more "fun" options than just "running at various paces and inclinations", but what we found was insufficient: either it was "more game than exercise" or it was "more flimsy" -- or the game just didn't seem like much fun after having tried them out once. TSo for us, and for now, it's the treadmill (with iFit training programs) + TV for the gym, and the WiiFit/WiiSport for having fun in the living room.
Now, just need to find a way of getting the cat to exercise as well....
Btw., "Beardo the Bearded", good job at dropping 15lb with the WiiFit! Keep it up!