Buying a Treadmill
By Jonathan Berohn
If you're anything like me, I'm sure you have no trouble completing this sentence: You know it's time to get in shape when... For me, it's when hiking in the mountains outside of Boulder turns into stop-and-going and the trek up to my 4th floor office starts to make me breath hard. In my defense, we're over 5300 feet here, but still, I think you get the picture.
Anyway, with my renewed commitment to getting in shape came the natural question of "just how are you going to motivate yourself to get off the couch and get back into an exercise routine? I'm the first one to admit that if I have to motivate myself I tend to lose interest fast. I don't like to go to the gym by myself, and while I go through periodic running kicks, the combination of West Nile scares and the ever present need for sunscreen out here, saps my resolve pretty quickly-not to mention that my schedule and my "Daddy play with me" duties usually leave me with my exercise time at night. To try to get around these obstacles, my wife and I decided it was time to get a treadmill.
Overwhelmed with Choices
My first lesson in treadmill buying was that there are more treadmill companies and models than I ever dreamed of. I thought that I'd simply go down to the local sporting goods store, plop down a few hundred bucks, and drive home with a serviceable machine. Needless to say I was quite wrong. Fortunately, I decided to do a bit of research on the web before heading out. After weeding through the propaganda...er-marketing materials that the various companies put out, I came across a tremendous resource for treadmill buying Treadmill Doctor. What makes treadmill Doctor so great is that they don't sell treadmills, they repair them and they rate them-almost ALL of them.
I quickly discovered that if you want any kind of performance out of your treadmill-especially if you want to run on it- you should buy it at a specialty store and NOT your local sporting goods store. The models most sporting goods stores carry are generally quite inferior to the more upscale machines you can find at specialty stores-and they are not even always cheaper. Anyway, after reading through reviews and talking to salespeople at various stores, I narrowed my list of potential purchases down to the offerings of a few companies.
The Contenders:
Smooth Fitness
Smooth Fitness makes some very well-regarded treadmills. The problem with Smooth is that, unless you live in Philadelphia, you have to buy it sight unseen. Smooth only sells their products directly, so you have to order from their web-site and hope you like what you get. For me, that's a little too much of a leap of faith. You should really try out the running/walking surface before you buy any treadmill.
LifeSpan
LifeSpan was a strong contender for me for a while. They offer some well-regarded treadmills that come in under $800 dollars. The problem I had with LifeSpan was their incredibly poor customer service. First of all, to locate a local retailer, they make you give them your e-mail address. I guess I should say an e-mail address, as the one I supplied just might not get back to me. Second-and even more infuriating-was the nature of the "retailer" they found for me. I dutifully plugged the address into Yahoo, printed out a map, and drove over to...some guy's house! Needless to say I didn't buy-or even see a LifeSpan treadmill.
Vision
I heard and read good things about Vision, but when I saw their $1299 treadmill and realized that it has no exercise programs-that's right-NO programs, I decided to pass. For that kind of money the addition of a few electronics doesn't seem to be too much to ask. Treadmills are boring enough when you do have some programs to change things up.
Pacemaster
Pacemaster is another company that makes a solid treadmill. The combination of a higher entry price ($1799), plus slight flimsy looking construction (not that it's made poorly, it just doesn't look like it would hold up) made me again look elsewhere.
I should say that there are also some really good high-end treadmills out there, but I wanted to keep things as close to $1,000 (or less) as I could.
The Winner
I ended up going with a Trimline treadmill. Specifically I opted for a Trimline T340. It is a solid running treadmill that comes with an astonishing 30 year frame and motor warranty and 8 programs to choose from. At $1299, the list price is a little more than I wanted to spend, but as new models are about to come out, we got a great deal that pushed the price down to right around $1000. All in all, the Trimline is very comfortable to run on, and it promises to hold up for a good long time.
