Drizzle, Frost and One Glorious Week of Sun: I Took My Orbitrek Into the Garden for a Month

Every orbitrek owner has had the thought. You're mid-stride, staring at the same patch of living room wall, and your eyes drift to the window. The garden's sitting there, all fresh air and birdsong, and the machine is sat indoors like a gym-bound hermit.

Could you just... take it outside?

It sounds daft. It probably is daft. But Britain's gyms are shut for nobody these days, our homes are small, and the average British patio is a genuinely lovely place to exercise for roughly eleven days a year. So I ran the experiment properly: one month, one mid-range magnetic orbitrek, one modest suburban garden in the Home Counties, and a patio roughly the size of a parking space.

Here's the diary, the damage, and the verdict.

Week One: The Drizzle Gambit

British spring being what it is, the trial opened with four consecutive days of that fine, sideways, can't-really-call-it-rain drizzle.

First lesson learned immediately: an orbitrek on grass is a non-starter. The feet sink, the frame wobbles, and you spend more energy stabilising than striding. Paving slabs or decking are essential. My patio slabs had a slight slope toward the drain, which turned out to be a hidden blessing — rainwater ran off, but it also meant the machine leaned noticeably at resistance level ten.

A £12 rubber mat from a local DIY shop solved the lean and stopped the feet from scuffing the slabs. If you try this at home, that mat is the single best pound-for-pound purchase in the whole experiment.

Drizzle itself? Genuinely fine. The machine got damp, I got damp, and the console fogged up like a bathroom mirror. I kept an old tea towel by the back door and gave it a wipe-down after every session. Ten seconds of effort, no drama.

Week Two: Frost and the Extension Lead Problem

The second week brought a cold snap, and this is where the cracks appeared — literally.

Magnetic resistance systems don't much care about cold, but the belt and the console did. On two mornings the display took a good ten minutes of sunlight before it would wake up, and the belt felt stiff for the first five minutes of each session. Nothing broke, but it was noticeable.

The bigger issue was power. My orbitrek needs mains for the console and resistance adjustment, which meant an outdoor extension lead snaking across the patio. If you go down this route, please spend the extra on a proper weatherproof IP-rated socket and a cable tidy. A cheap indoor extension lead and morning dew is a combination I wouldn't recommend to anyone, and a qualified electrician should fit any outdoor socket properly. This is not the place to bodge it.

The frost sessions themselves, though, were oddly brilliant. Cold air, breath steaming, no sweat-drenched stuffiness. There's a reason cold-water swimmers bang on about it.

Week Three: The Sun Week

Then Britain did the thing Britain occasionally does, and delivered seven straight days of proper sunshine.

And I'll be honest — outdoor orbitreking in the sun is the best cardio I've had at home, full stop. Striding along with the sound of next door's radio and the smell of someone's barbecue beats staring at a wall by an enormous margin. I did longer sessions, more of them, and enjoyed every one.

One warning: direct sun on a console screen makes it nearly unreadable. Position the machine with your back to the sun if you can, or just accept you'll be going off feel rather than numbers for a few days.

Week Four: Reality Returns

The final week brought wind, then proper rain, and the shine wore off fast. A gusty day makes balancing on a machine genuinely awkward, and hauling a 40-odd-kilo orbitrek in and out of the house every time it looked like rain became a chore I started resenting.

Which raises the storage question. Mine went back indoors every evening. If you're contemplating leaving an orbitrek outside permanently — even under a cover — don't. Bearing corrosion, console condensation and a warranty that almost certainly won't cover weather damage make it a false economy. The garage-or-shed compromise is worth exploring, but that's a different article.

So, Should You Do It?

Here's my honest scorecard after a month:

• Spring through autumn, covered patio, mat underneath, weatherproof power: genuinely lovely, and worth doing.
• Winter, open garden, cheap extension lead: no. Just no.
• Permanent outdoor storage: never. Rust never sleeps, and neither will you, worrying about it.

The garden orbitrek is not a replacement for the indoor setup — it's a seasonal bonus. Think of it like the pub garden: brilliant in May, absurd in January. If you've got a sheltered patio and a spare half hour on a fine morning, wheel it out, wipe it down afterwards, and enjoy the birdsong.

Just bring it back in before the drizzle does.