In a Nutshell:
The Exerpeutic 2500 Bike is a surprisingly good looking, capable piece of exercise equipment you could actually spend a full workday in, and get plenty of exercise to boot! Recommended for anyone willing to give a bike desk a try.
Value for the Money
Comfort
Usability
Brand Reliability*
Overall Rating
4.2/5
Benefits
Drawbacks
Recommended For: Anyone willing to give a bike desk a try.
Are you interested in getting fit but struggling to find the time? Do you hate the idea of going to the gym? Are you looking for a way to incorporate a decent fitness routine into your day without sacrificing your productivity?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re going to love our Exerpeutic 2500 review.
We’ll be quick to say that this kind of alternative office seating solution isn’t for everyone. A bike desk is geared toward a very specific individual who’s serious about burning calories and getting in better shape but wants to keep the same work schedule while doing that.
Forget chair exercises.
Those won’t provide even a fraction of the benefits you’ll get when you start peddling your way to better health and even monitoring your progress, all while continuing to work. If that sounds good to you, then keep reading.
In the sections that follow, we’ll tell you everything the Exerpeutic 2500 bike desk can do and be quick to note its limitations and shortcomings, so you’ll have all the information you need to decide if this is the alternative office seating solution you’ve been searching for. Let’s take a closer look, starting right now!
An Overview of the Exerpeutic 2500 Bicycle Desk
The first thing you’ll notice when you see the Exerpeutic 2500 bike for the first time is that it looks like a luxury stationary bike. The work desk mounted on the front has a relatively low profile and is easy to miss.
At first glance, this might not appear to you to be anything more than a conventional stationary bike.
A closer look will, of course, reveal it to be anything but. Before we get into its various features, though, let’s take a quick moment to review the core stats that define this model. Here they are:
These stats reveal two things of significance to us right off the bat. First, this is a big, hulking piece of furniture. It’s going to require a significant amount of space to set up and use effectively.
Unfortunately, that’s going to make it a non-starter for some, and perhaps even many people, so be sure to take careful measurements and have a permanent home lined up for it before committing to a purchase.
The second thing we noticed about the figures above, and something that mildly disappoints us, is that the bike is only capable of supporting a modest 250 pounds of user weight.
Granted, that’s a sufficient amount to accommodate some 80% of the market, but consider.
Most people who are interested in getting fit will probably be at least a little overweight. In our view, this would be an even better product if it supported 300, or even 350 pounds. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case, which somewhat limits the appeal of this model.
Assuming the weight limit and size of the bike aren’t deal breakers for you, let’s see what this machine is truly capable of.
Adjustability, Comfort, and Capabilities
There’s a lot to cover in this section of our Exerpeutic 2500 review, but we’ll just take it one step at a time. Let’s start with comfort because there’s not as much to say on that topic as there are on the others. For an exercise bike, it offers a surprisingly comfortable seat.
The padding is 3.3” thick, which wouldn’t be great if the seat was padded with conventional block foam, but it’s not. It sports advanced AirSoft technology which sees you seated on a cushion of hundreds of individual air pockets.
The seatback is less extravagantly padded, featuring a modest layer of block foam. It’s not outstanding, but it’s certainly better than you see on most exercise bikes – many of them don’t offer a seatback at all!
Even better, although the seat isn’t height-adjustable, it does slide back and forth along a track that spans part of the length of the bike, and the seatback can be set to a variety of angles. It will take a bit of experimentation, but there are enough customization options in the seat to ensure that you’re surprisingly comfortable sitting on the equipment.
Now let’s talk about the workspace. The tray itself measures an impressive 24” x 16” and is capable of supporting up to 44 pounds of work gear. It also comes with two built-in cup holders, one at each corner. Use one for a drink and the other to hold pens, paperclips, your smartphone, or other small items, giving you a handy, albeit smallish storage compartment.
Running along the front edge of the work tray, you’ll find a padded strip for your wrists, allowing you to place even a large laptop on the work tray and type comfortably.
Even better, the work tray is fully articulated. You can adjust the angle downward by up to thirty degrees, adjust its height to bring it closer to you or move it farther away for a perfect fit, and slide it back and forth along a short track.
The ability to move the work tray up and down makes up for the fact that the seat itself isn’t height adjustable. You get the same basic effect without overcomplicating the engineering of the bike portion of the machine.
Although the work tray is well-sized and about as big as the company could make it given the size of the Exerpeutic 2500 bicycle desk itself and the amount of space they had to work with, you’ll probably find yourself wanting and needing a bit more.
Be prepared to incorporate a side table next to the bike to hold the supplies you need that won’t quite fit in the space you have available on the bike desk itself.
As to the stationary bike component of the machine, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. It offers fourteen different adjustment levels allowing you to choose from a wide range of exercise options to something light and easy, offering little resistance to a hardcore, grueling workout and everything in between.
In addition to that, the bike desk comes with a free app (both Android and iOS versions available) that allows you to track your distance, calories burned, and time spent.
While we’d like to see more from the app, that’s a fairly easy thing for the company to continue making improvements to.
As it stands now, it’s certainly useful, but not something you’ll be dazzled by.
Assembly Can Be Challenging
The assembly instructions are part of the user manual we linked to in this document, and even a quick look through them will reveal that this is a machine with a lot of moving parts.
Expect the assembly process to be fairly time-consuming. Heck, expect the process of unboxing and sorting the pieces to be fairly time-consuming.
If you’re doing it by yourself, it may take about an hour, and possibly slightly more. If you have an assistant handy on the day your bike desk arrives, you could probably knock fifteen minutes off of the total time it takes to get it ready for first use.
It’s also worth noting here in our Exerpeutic 2500 Exerwork review that this model does come with an expert assembly option. You have to pay a hefty fee for the service, but if you’re not mechanically inclined, you’ll probably find it to be well worth the extra money. One way or the other though, you’ll have to slog through the process before you can actually start using it, so whichever option makes the most sense for you and your particular situation.
Pros and Cons of the Exerpeutic 2500 Bike Desk
We love the Exerpeutic Exerwork 2500.
It’s got a lot of great features and is quite capable, both as a workspace and as an exercise bike. The app is reasonably user-friendly and genuinely useful too. That said, there are a few points of weakness in the design that are worth reiterating.
As long as that’s not a requirement for you, you’ll find it reasonably comfortable, even if you spend the better part of the day in it, but if you suffer from chronic back pain, you’ll find yourself missing those ergonomic features (especially lumbar support) in short order.
Exerpeutic 2500 Review – Final Thoughts
Despite its shortcomings and limitations, this is a serious piece of machinery that combines the best features of an exercise bike with a fully functional workspace, giving you the best of both worlds. As an exercise bike, it will give you a solid workout, and the app allows you to track your progress over time. The workspace is big enough to be functional, though as we said earlier, you’ll almost certainly want to incorporate a side table to hold anything that the desk doesn’t.
We mentioned at the start that a product like this is only going to appeal to a very specific type of user. As such, the Exerpeutic 2500 Bike Desk is almost entirely self-selecting. If the size of the machine and the weight limit aren’t issues for you, you’re going to love it. If they are, then it won’t even be worth a serious look. On that basis, we provisionally recommend it.
Recommended Reading
Exerpeutic ExerWork 2000i Folding Bike Desk Review
Our review of the Exerpeutic ExerWork 2000i Folding Bike details why it’s a good option for fitness and workspace integration.
FitDesk Exercise Bike Desk Reviews
In this review, we explored why the FitDesk Bike Desk can be an excellent collapsible option for active users.
References & Resources:
- Paradigm Health & Wellness – Exerpeutic, Official Brand Site.
- Exerpeutic 2500 Bike Desk User Manual.
- MyCloud Fitness, Official App Site.
- Stationary Bike Workout for Beginners, Verywell Fit.
- What Are the Health Benefits of Routinely Riding a Stationary Bike?, Chron.