Well, not exactly. But as you will soon discover, baby is involved when it comes to the design for a new type of exercise bike that has more than one purpose behind it.
So what is the grand idea? Well, this exercise bike looks much like any other exercise bike if you focus on one end of it. There is a saddle and some handlebars, just as you would find on any bike. But the other end looks a little stranger.
It soon transpires that this end is designed for the baby. It looks a little like a C shape which is laying on its back, and it is padded to provide a nice soft place for your baby to lie while you are on the exercise bike. The bike was not surprisingly invented by a new dad who was exasperated by the fact that he couldn’t get any exercise done while he was looking after his young baby.
While most of us would try and get on the exercise bike while baby was asleep, Kevin Meredith decided he would try and come up with a design for an exercise bike that would help him get the baby off to sleep at the same time as getting his regular burst of exercise.
The design might look a little odd but he says it works – and it has also won him an award. Innovation Nation awards prizes for those inventions that really show promise of being made in the future, and since he picked up first prize, netting him £1000 in the process, Kevin will no doubt feel positive. He could well end up getting this unusual looking bike made and distributed at some point in the future.
So does it work like a normal bike would work? Well it does, and it doesn’t. That might seem like a strange response but it is true. Apparently as you pedal the cradle part of the bike starts rocking, making baby (hopefully) drift off to sleep. So in theory the little one will benefit from your exercise routine just as much as you will.
Of course it could be some time before we see this particular bike hitting the shelves in shops all over the country. But there will no doubt be a lot of interest from new parents (and parents to be) all over the country, as someone has finally come up with something with them in mind. Everyone who has had kids will know that trying to get any time for yourself to do any exercise is virtually impossible.
So while the design might look a little strange, the concept is nothing short of brilliant. It is also suggested that it could help you and your child bond a bit more easily while you get fit, although that is open for debate.
At any rate, it is worth keeping an eye on how this story develops, to see whether it really does end up coming to fruition.