Flat-Pack Fitness: The Honest Truth About Building Your Own Orbitrek
Photo: NASA, ESA, B. Williams (University of Washington), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Let me tell you something the product pages won't: the hardest part of owning an orbitrek isn't the workouts. It's the hour (or three) between the courier leaving and the machine actually being usable, when you're sat on your kitchen floor surrounded by foam packaging, holding a bolt that doesn't seem to fit anything, wondering if the dog ate a washer.
We built five of the best-selling orbitreks in the UK, start to finish, timing each one properly. Same tester for all five (me, regretfully), same toolkit, same kitchen. Here's how it went.
The Contenders and the Clock
The budget folding model (~£180): 1 hour 40 minutes solo. The instructions were eight pages of line drawings with no words, which sounds universal until you're staring at Diagram 4 trying to work out whether that's the left stabiliser or the right one from a different angle. It was the right one. It was always the right one.
The mid-range magnetic machine (~£350): 2 hours 15 minutes, and this is where I'll say it plainly: you want two people for this one. The main frame unit weighs north of 25kg and needs to be held upright while you bolt the stabilisers on. I managed it by wedging it against a kitchen cupboard, which I don't recommend unless you're fond of your cupboards.
The heavy front-drive model (~£600): 2 hours 50 minutes with a second person, and honestly it would've been three solo. Everything about it is chunkier — the flywheel alone is a two-hander. The upside? The instructions were genuinely excellent: proper exploded diagrams, a printed parts checklist, even spare bolts in the box. Whoever wrote that manual deserves a raise.
The compact rear-drive (~£280): 1 hour 10 minutes. The quickest build of the lot, largely because it's smaller and the frame comes partly pre-assembled. A confident first-time build for anyone.
The premium club-style machine (~£900): 3 hours 20 minutes with two of us. It arrived in two boxes, one of which weighed more than my nan's freezer. This is the machine that sent me to B&Q — more on that in a moment.
The Tool Situation
Nearly every machine comes with the bare minimum: a sad little Allen key and a spanner that bends if you look at it funny. They technically work. You will hate them.
What you actually want ready before you start:
- A ratchet set with hex bits — this alone cut my later build times dramatically
- An adjustable spanner with some proper leverage
- A rubber mallet for persuading plastic covers into place
- A torch or head torch, because you'll spend a surprising amount of time peering into dark frame joints
The premium machine needed a 17mm socket the provided kit didn't include. That was the B&Q trip. Annoying, but a tenner spent versus hours of frustration.
Are Retailer Assembly Fees Worth It?
Most UK retailers charge somewhere between £50 and £100 for assembly, sometimes with the old machine removed for extra. My honest take, having done all five builds:
Worth it if: the machine is over 40kg, it's going upstairs, or you live alone. The premium front-driver and the club-style machine both fall firmly in this camp. £80 to not wrestle a flywheel down a hallway is money well spent, and many services include packaging removal — which matters, because these boxes do not fit in a normal bin.
Not worth it if: you're buying a compact or folding model, you've got a helper, and you own a ratchet set. The £180 folder and the compact rear-drive were both genuinely satisfying builds. There's a real pleasure in standing on a machine you bolted together yourself. Brief pleasure, admittedly, because then you have to do a workout.
My Tips Before You Start
- Clear more space than you think you need. Twice the machine's footprint, minimum.
- Don't fully tighten anything until the end. Every good manual says this; every bad manual doesn't, and you'll discover why the hard way when bolt holes won't line up.
- Count the parts first. All five machines had a parts bag, and only one had a diagram listing quantities. Five minutes with the bolts saves an hour of hunting later.
- Do it the day the box arrives, not three weeks later. Motivation is a perishable good.
The Bottom Line
Assembly difficulty tracks with price and weight, roughly. Under £300 and you can likely go it alone in under two hours with decent tools. Above that, get a friend, or better yet, get the retailer's team in and start your fitness journey with your back intact.
And whichever route you take — keep the little Allen key. You'll need it again in about a week, when the first bolt works loose. They always do.
