Hello,

<skip first two paragraphs if you just want to get to the details>

Just for a quick background, I am 32 yrs old and my wife is 33. We both used to be quite hard core athletes (she played a number of sports, I was an ultra-endurance athlete) but unfortunately that has slipped since 'real-life' and kids entered the picture. I have been mostly out of training for the past 3 yrs while she has been for the past 6-7. What we have both discovered is that when you continue to eat like an athlete but live a sedentary lifestyle the weight just packs on -- each of us are 15-20% overweight. While we don't ever truly expect to gain back our previous fitness/weight we would like to take off most of the weight and become somewhat fit. We have both tried gym memberships but found that getting up at 5am to get to a gym some distance away just isn't working (sleep in most of the time).

OK, so with that as background we decided to buy a peice of equipment for the home. We have very little to spend so although we would love an elliptical, anything that looks somewhat sturdy (I am 6'2" and 215 lbs) is >$1500. On the other hand, we have both had some success in the past with using a recumbant bike in the gym, -- it takes more effort but you really can get the heart rate into a good training zone. Fortunately, the local fitness store seems to have some good prices on recombents.

The Vision R2000 is availalable for $449 (Canadian ~ $350 USD) and the Nautilus NR1000 is a floor model for $799 (~$625 USD). Both seem pretty good, although the Nautilus is clearly a beefier machine. I have my own heart rate monitor so that isn't value added to me. In any case, if anyone is familiar with either company/machine or has any other comments I would be most grateful.

Thanks