Stamina 5325 Exercise Bike Review

After ordering the bike from Amazon, it took about 9 days to arrive via FedEx (with free shipping). The delivery driver left the bike at my doorstep without ringing the bell. However, I was home at the time and aware that something had been delivered. You may want to track the shipment and make sure someone is home on the delivery date or have a neighbor retrieve the box for you.

The box is large, but can be carried or walked into your home using the straps on the box. The contents of the unpacked box are shown in the picture (right).

Assembly

Assembly of the bike for the most part is easy - it took me 1 hour to assemble the bike working at a reasonably slow pace with a few interruptions. One person can assemble the bike but there is a step in the assembly where a second pair of hands is very helpful.

Each part was individually wrapped and well protected from shipping damage. Nuts and bolts were vacuumed sealed to an identification board which makes finding the right nuts, bolts, and washers an easy task. All required tools for assembly are included. However, a 13mm socket wrench will speed-up the fastening down of the seat.

Assembly Tips

1. When installing the stabalizer legs (Step 1) make sure the visible black screw heads on the ends of both stabalizer legs are pointing down.
2. Connecting the tension cable (Step 6) is in my opinion the hardest part of the assembly and may require a second pair of hands (or propping the upright on a sofa or other piece of furniture while you work).
   
   TO CONNECT THE TENSION CABLE -
   1. First, turn the tension knob on the upright to position "8" ( this will give you more cable to work with).
   2. Next, loosen the adjustment nut directly below the bracket (part #24 in the manual) and turn it almost all the way to the bottom of the threaded adjuster.
   3. Turn (screw) the bracket down until it stops against the adjuster nut. You should now have enough slack to hook the cable end in the Spring Hook and the upper metal fitting over the top of the bracket.
   4. Once the connection is made turn the bracket back up the adjuster to remove slack then turn the aduster nut back up and tighten against to bracket to ensure it does not loosen-up on you.
   5. *NOTE, to loosen and tighten the adjuster nut I used a small wrench that was not included.
   6. Connect the black sensor wire ends (part #27 and #28).
3. When attaching the upright to the main base, be sure to leave all bolts FINGER TIGHT until all bolts are started (if you tighten one bolt all the way down it will be harder to start the other bolts).
4. The 4 heart rate monitor contacts on the handle bars have a thin plastic coating you need to peel off before they will operate properly.

Operation:

Operation of the Stamina 5325 exercise bike is smooth and quiet. In fact, it is so quiet I think one could use it day or night without disturbing someone sleeping in another room.

The seat is wide and reasonably comfortable - which is a good thing because you cannot use any other type of seat on this bike.

There are 8 tension (resistance) settings which are more than enough for me. I believe that tension settings 1 - 5 will be more than adequate for most older riders. The remaining tension settings 6 - 8 should be more than enough for younger, more athletic riders to achieve a good aerobic workout.

The bike takes up little floor space and fits perfectly on a standard 3'7" x 2' rug or mat.

The computer display starts automatically when you begin pedaling and shuts-off after you stop for an extended period of time. While riding the bike the display switches between time, speed, distance, calories burned, PGM and pulse. If you prefer you can make it display only one function.

The computer includes 10 pre-programmed workouts where you are encouraged to pedal faster and/or increase resistance. It would be nice if resistance would increase automatically (it doesn't), but I'm sure that would make the bike much more expensive and possibly more prone to breakdowns.

Conclusion:

Overall I'm very happy with the price, quality, and performance of this exercise bike. I really like that it takes up little floor space and is exceptionally quiet. If you are in the market for an exercise bike, I recommend that you add it to your list of possible choices.