Cycli Review
In-office fitness has exploded in popularity in recent years. From standing desks, treadmill desks and ball chairs to office-wide exercise routines and even sleeping pods, the fitness revolution has hit the workplace. There are a wide range of office fitness solutions available, but none of them are able to combine the cardio workout of an pushbike ride with the productivity enhancing ergonomics of sitting at a desk. Until now.
Emerging from a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, The Cycli is a new office fitness device defined as the ‘First Social Under-Desk Cycle’. Cycli promises to help you get fit while sitting at your desk, track the results of your under-desk efforts, and connect to family or friends to share results or race against co-workers.
In this article we’ll break down the features, design and construction of the Cycli and provide an analysis on the potential health benefits of the device.
What is the Cycli?
The Cycli is essentially a micro sized lightweight portable exercise bike that fits under your desk with the added benefit of being bluetooth enabled and connected to social media.
The first bluetooth enabled portable exercise cycle in the world, the cycli makes it possible to race against office friends (or enemies), your family, or even other Cycli users from all over the world.
Cycli is placed under the desk of the user and as the desk-athlete cycles it tracks all relevant data such as reps, distance covered, calories burned and more, and transmits them to the user’s smartphone or bluetooth enabled device. Cycli doesn’t only track fitness data, however, it also shares it in a social manner via a custom Cycli app.
Cycli has gathered worldwide attention from massively popular tech publications such as Gadgetify and Digital Trends and has been featured in the news by programs such as FOX23 as well as newspapers including the Miami Herald and even the Los Angeles Daily News.
One of the core tenements behind the concept of the Cycli is that people are more successful in achieving fitness goals when they are held accountable by other people. Cycli facilitates this accountability by connecting each Cycli User to every other Cycli user so they can publish goals and results that can be actively monitored by others.
Another factor that makes it difficult to commit to regular exercise is time- in today’s busy world it can be difficult to find the time to attend a regular gym schedule or find room in the house or apartment for bulky workout equipment.
The small profile of the Cycli and it’s ease of use surmounts these issues, making it easy for users to exercise while completing a wide range of activities such as working, watching TV or movies, playing video games, reading books, caring for babies and more.
Cycli Design & Construction
The Cycli touts itself as the portable cycle reinvented. Consisting of many feature rich elements that don’t exist on traditional exercise cycles, the Cycli team combines a plethora of patented ideas into a slick, small exercise machine that doesn’t sacrifice on quality. The low profile design of the Cycli is stored easily and is lightweight, making it easy to quickly take out and begin exercising.
A durable high quality steel and aluminium composite frame provides a sturdy base for the Cycli, with anti slip footpads holding it securely to the floor to prevent sliding and offer strong resistance for a vigorous workout.
The Cycli can be controlled through a large 46mm touch screen console interface that displays critical information such as calories burned, distance covered, time spent working out, rep count and more.
The screen is tapped to scroll through the collected data, and can even be operated with the foot of the user. The screen conveniently automatically turns on when the user begins cycling and is mounted within easy viewing distance.
The Cycli, unlike other traditional exercise cycles, uses a magnetic resistance mechanism to push against the user and provide a wide spectrum of varying difficulty levels. Offering eight different levels of resistance, the magnetic mechanism of the Cycli has a smooth and super quiet action that will barely be heard by your office co-workers.
The calorie counting element of the Cycli takes the resistance level of the user into account when providing caloric burn estimates to provide a more accurate representation of the efforts of the user than other fitness bikes.
The Cycli is powered by a lithium polymer battery that stores enough energy to run for days without being recharged and can be plugged in to any wall outlet to power back up. The battery is used to power the LCD touch screen and the brains of the Cycli, the Bluetooth low energy module.
Cycli’s Bluetooth low energy module is custom designed and the the element that allows the Cycli to communicate with your mobile device. The Cycli connects to an that is available for both Android and iOS, on which the user can publish workout results and statistics and create or join public or private exercise groups for added motivation.
Behind the Cycli
The Cycli is the brainchild of Flint Rehab, a technology company that specializes in using high tech innovation to increase the quality of lives of people who suffer from strokes, brain injury and spinal cord injury.
The Cycli project began in 2014 when the team began a quest to design a fitness product that was suitable for all body types and lifestyles without barriers to entry such as price or large time commitments.
Cycli took their innovative cycle design to Kickstarter on May 18, 2016 and by the 2nd of July, just 45 days later, Cycli had received over $135,437 USD from over 1,00 eager backers to bring their project to life.
Cycli Pricing and Availability
Cycli is available for order from the Cycli Indiegogo Page, their second crowdfunding campaign. The Cycli is priced at $119 USD plus shipping and handling. Cycli expect their first wave of shipments to occur in December 2016.
