A WOMAN clearing out laundry from her spare room has unearthed an original 1982 exercise bike believed to be one of the first in Britain.
Mary Fisher, from Peterborough, was finally getting to the bottom of her washing pile when she recognised the distinctive shape of handlebars beneath a faded puffball skirt.
She said: “I couldn’t believe it. It must have been there, undisturbed, since before the dawn of breakfast television. Back then they still had a visible wheel.
“It looks like at some point it was used as an impromptu clothes maiden and then it snowballed from there. I never used it, of course – even back when they were exciting and new, we didn’t use them – so I didn’t notice it was gone.”
The bike, along with a Green Goddess fitness video and Thighmaster found while excavating earlier strata of laundry, will be donated to a local museum.
Fisher said: “It’s great to finally have that mess cleared out because now I’ve got room for an elliptical stepper.
“I’m getting healthy, you see.”
