The Cateye Game Bike Review — An Exercise in Fun

Ohiyo Gozaimasu!

Every so often we get to take a bit of a break here at the DOJO and do something really fun. Today that fun was in the form of a shipment of GB300 Game Bikes from Cateye Fitness which came in. We’ll be setting these up at a local YMCA later in the week, but we got to set them up and play with…er…test them out all day long. In fact, as I write this, Hikaru is leading a number of the younger senseis in a tournament of Motocross. They can have their mountain bike games because later on I plan to reclaim one of the Cateye Recumbent Game Bikes for a few laps of Nascar!

If you haven’t seen the Cateye Game Bikes, which have been floating around for a few years now, the units are upright (and now recumbent) bikes which are linked to a video game controller. You can plug these things in to your Xbox, Gamecube, Playstation 2 or even PC and use them to control your games (last count was somewhere around 100 games I believe..but don’t quote the Sensei on that). You steer with the handle bars and speed up or slow down by pedalling.

What the game bikes by Cateye allow you to do is to add a fully interactive fitness element to most racing games — dirt bike, motorcycle, atv, auto and even water-based racing games all work very well with the Cateye Game bikes.

And the best part is, thanks to perceived exertion, you won’t even realize how much of a work out you are getting while you play! For the layperson, “perceived exertion” basically amounts to your mind tricking your body in to not realizing how much it is working out because of the fun it’s having. That’s right, the Game Bikes distract your brain and you get more exercise out of it.

When it comes to the Cateye Gamebikes, there are basically three varieties: the home Cateye Game Bike, the Cateye Game Bike Pro (or commercial Game Bike) and the Commercial Cateye Recumbent Game Bike. The differences are all pretty obvious. The two upright versions come in a large and small version — one for smaller children, the other for larger ones and adults.

From my experience, the commercial versions are head and shoulders about the home version, but the cost is almost 4 times as much! However, if you’ve got a child who enjoys biking or one you want to get a little more exercise, then the home versions are excellent purchases. In no time flat you’ll see your child spending hours and hours in front of the TV riding hard on his or her Cateye Game Bike. The things are addicting as heck and don’t be surprised if a lot of your child’s friends are coming over to play with the new addition to your home.

The bikes come with 8 levels of manually controlled resistance and optional heart rate monitoring. The commercial Cateye Game Bikes also come with 9 workout programs.

Overall, the bikes are a great buy for a family or even a child oriented fitness facility. Grown-ups won’t get as much out of the home versions because they are fairly light weight in their manufacture. The commercial Cateye Game Bikes and their Recumbent Game Bike cousins, however, will hold up to even the most rigorous of workouts. Personally, the Cateye Recumbent Game Bike is my favorite of the bunch. Sitting down and using it in conjunction with an auto racing game is one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had. The only thing better would be to take one of the Sci Fit Ellipticals and modify it to work with a Mechwarrior style game — yeah….a Mechwarrior Elliptical would be worth just about any price. Cateye, if you’re reading this, make the concept check payable to “The Treadmill Sensei.”

For being ultra cool, the Treadmill Sensei gives the Cateye Game Bike 5 Golden Buddahs out of 5. What are you waiting for? Go out and get one today!!

-The Treadmill Sensei
http://www.treadmillsensei.com