The ProForm 385 CSX is a recumbent bike that is sold for about $380 in most stores. Its price tag does raise some questions considering there are cheaper basic bikes sold in the market that receives much better reviews than this one. The followings are some of the good and bad points for this bike. You should reserve your judgments until you’ve understand the whole truth about this bike.
Pros
As far as assembly goes this bike is a relatively easy bike to put together. The unit itself adapts the walk-through design so you can just sit and ride without having to lift your feet high to go over the frame.
Novice bikers will love the fact that this bike is very easy and smooth to pedal. Riding using the highest resistance level is still doable for beginners. To keep exercising interesting ProFrom included eight workout programs where you can vary the resistance and speed according to your own goals.
Cons
Even though ProForm 385 CSX is labeled as a recumbent bike it is not exactly recumbent. On default setting the seat makes you pedal in almost upright position. That is not very comfortable. The seat is very hard to adjust back and forth and the seat back is not adjustable. The seat is hard too and if you add a gel seat pad it will change the angle to the pedals.
The second grief is the LCD display. The numbers shown on the display is very inaccurate. It seems to show highly overestimated values. For example if you pedal slowly on another bike the display may show 15 mph but doing the same slow ride on this bike can show over 20 mph.
Some owners of this bike have reported that their bikes are starting to show problems in less than 3 months even with moderate usage. The pedals starting to grind, the screw mechanism getting harder to adjust, tension belt misaligned, etc.
Conclusion
The ProForm 385 CSX recumbent bike is a basic exercise bike that can do what an exercise bike should do. It is able to make you lose a few pounds and increase your overall fitness. However, it is seriously lacking in terms of comfort and durability. If all you want is a basic exercise bike to exercise daily save your money and buy more reliable bikes from Stamina or Schwinn.
