Get Fit. Get a Bike Desk!

It’s a New Year … Get a New Body … Get Fit! … proclaim lots of the blogs I’ve surfed of late. “Surfing” sounds sort of like it could be exercise, doesn’t it? Hmm. So far it hasn’t done anything to eliminate my holiday weight gain. It’s time to get moving again, which is a challenge for the weakly motivated and the majorly uncoordinated. (That would be me.)

Writers who spend hours seated at their computers writing (or, in my case, procrastinating by surfing online) need to find clever ways to sneak exercise into their daily routines. No one does that better than Arthur Slade, a prolific YA writer whom I admire. Arthur spends four hours a day walking (very slowly) while he writes on his homemade treadmill desk.

Arthur puts me to shame—but he was the inspiration for my own “exercise-while-working” adaptation of his contraption: JUDY’S BIKE DESK. I brought my road bike indoors for the winter and purchased a stand to make it stationary. Kayak Guy (aka my husband) then built a wooden ledge for it that nicely holds my laptop. Now I can write, read and surf while I pedal. Even my dog (whose name happens to be Biker) can hitch a ride in my basket. How cool is that?

If you like the concept, but want something less primitive than my Bike Desk, you could step up to the “WeBike.”

The “WeBike” even powers your devices while you work—and simultaneously get fit! How’s that for multitasking?

I’m curious. What are you doing to try to fit more exercise into your life this year? Anything imaginative?