In household furnishings, are we entering an era of jock chic?
Occasioning that question—posed, of course, by a professional writer, a creature whose idea of calisthenics begins and ends with hefting a coffee mug—is the ubiquity lately of mentions of the Ciclotte, a new-millennial exercise bike from the Italian company of the same name (ciclotte.com).
In the past few months, the Ciclotte has garnered ink not only in Monocle Special and Wallpaper*, but also in Technology Review—yes, from Tyler Brûlé present and past to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Under other circumstances, naturally, such adroit product placement would earn no comment from AT HOME. After all, dear reader, our congenital (if not downright jubilant) sloth to the contrary notwithstanding, even we once owned an exercise bike, a tinfoil travesty that likely dreamt of becoming a unicycle as it gathered dust in one gray basement corner.
Over time, moreover, clueless Y-chromosome types have sought to integrate gym and living room, usually to machismoronic effect. Free weights? Um, yeah, right—there beside the Ming vase shimmering at its rim with protein powder. Très “could you stash those homely things in the garage?” Even devices from Nautilus and its longtime competitors, despite the excellence of their engineering, lack a requisite polish, with all of their Frankensteinian cables and pulleys and levers and hydraulics.
There—precisely there—the Ciclotte differs, almost dauntingly so. To steal a trope from hometown boy and noted fitness buff T.S. Eliot, “the roses / Had the look of flowers that are looked at.” That is, as a piece of exercise equipment, the Ciclotte borders on sculpture and, at the epicenter of a Loft District soiree, amid salvers of passed appetizers and cheap bubbly, would almost certainly spark admiring conversation.
Why? Simple. With a midnight body “made of carbon composites, fiberglass, and steel” (to quote Technology Review) and handlebars that resemble eyestalks, the thing brings to mind nothing so much as an unshelled black snail practicing tantric yoga solo or, perhaps, Ouroboros in onyx.
Way too sexy for something as quotidian as spokes, the Ciclotte likewise features not only “a touch-screen display” (Wallpaper*), but also an “epicyclic transmission [that] connects the pedals to a flywheel concealed within the large outer ring” (Technology Review).
Now, to be perfectly frank, we haven’t the foggiest notion what that last detail from the mavens at MIT means. Even quoting it, in fact, leaves us a bit breathless, as does the price tag cited by Technology Review for the Ciclotte: “Around $11,000.”
Then again, tacitly or otherwise, home décor has always angled at inspiring breathlessness—rather like exercise equipment, yes?
