Oddly, about 2 years ago I too was sitting at computer and watching Sunday TV with coffee in hand. I watched the LandRyder info commercial and thought that riding a bike just might be the exercize I was looking for. Those fat tires looked safe, and auto shifting, that has to be better then the friction shifting I operated 20 years earlier and didn't care for. I should have gone to a LBS, but I had some dollars burning a hole in pocket. At least I checked ebay and bought a reconditioned one for only $300, freight included. I would sell it a year later on ebay for $255.

For the time I had it, the bike rode fine. My only minor complaint is at times I wanted to cruise at a certain cadence, but the autoshifter hadn't upshifted to permit that. So I had to speed up a bit till shifter moved, then settle back to my desired cruise. The centrifugal weights spun with the rear wheels. The weights were connected at one end to a sliding cam. The same design as the early centrifugal governors you see on those old one cylinder engines. So as speed picked up, weights spun faster and flatened out, and there by sliding the derailer. You had 7 speeds on rear and a convential dual sprocket, with twist shifter on front. I put 382 miles on bike. My bike weighed 40 pounds. The seat was nice. I miss the seat.

Anyway the son in laws thought it was good I was riding, but pointed out that they have index shifting now. How hard is it to push a button? So while the Tour of France was in progress I finally checked a real bike shop that had Treks on sale. Bought a 7200FX for $329. And of course the index shifting was a piece of cake, there is a much greater range of gearing available (24 sp) and about 10 pounds lighter. Needless to say for the price I could not recommend the LandRyder. There is so much more bike to be had at a LBS.