So I finally went through with it and ordered the mini excercise bike. It has magnetic resistance, an on-board display (distance, speed, calories, time) that you can actually extend out and put it elsewhere, and it fits under my desk.
My regular desk chair is too squeaky to use with the mini bike, but my directors chair works great. The main problem I had was reaching the keyboard. My legs got in the way. However, I'm not going to let something as trivial as leg room discourage me. The solution was to build a keyboard stand attached to the chair itself. I held the keyboard above my legs and measured the difference. While this was obviously not an exact science, it suited my purposes. From the wooden of the chair, I had to raise 7" in the front and 5" in the back. Adding 2" for the chair arms itself, I had 9" and 7". I took some scrap 1x6 boards I had and cut them just so. I drilled and then screwed these to the sides of the chair arms. I did a quick test of the wooden plank I had (which originally came from a tv stand or desk) to confirm I liked the height, and it was perfect. After confirming the height and position would work, I added the final touch: a piece of trim underneath the wooden plank to hold it in place.
Once everything was setup, I found that I can comfortably ride and type at 12-13mph for well over an hour at a time. This is multitasking at its finest!
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