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Background

I’ve been running for about a year (~ 1400 miles in 2007) with roughly half my time outside and half on gym or hotel treadmills. I really enjoy the commercial Life Fitness treadmills at my gym, but sometimes it is nice to have one you can just hop on without a 20 minute drive (or this time of year having to wait for one to open up). My wife and I were looking at a few different treadmills, and we liked the main stats of the Bowflex series 7: strong engine, large tread area (20×60), heavy frame, fast enough. For just under $1400 and with no tax or shipping charges, buying it through Amazon seemed like a good move.

Ordering
I ordered the treadmill late Friday night and received a call on Monday from the freight delivery company (ABF, in my case) asking if I would be home on Tuesday for the treadmill to be dropped off. They gave me a 2 hour window of 11am -> 1pm to expect the delivery. Knowing it was a very heavy unit (300 lbs), I asked a friend if he could come over and help me move it into the house and assemble it.

Freight Delivery
The freight company arrived a few minutes before 11:00am the next day. I was a bit surprised that there was only a single guy in the truck. I helped him move the unit on a dolly to the porch, and then we waited a few minutes for my friend and his teenage son to show up. With 4 of us, it wasn’t hard to move the BIG box into the house, but it would have been pretty tough with just two people. Make sure you have a friend or two with some muscles to help.

Assembly
We unpacked the unit and read through the instructions. Overall, the instructions and labeling were pretty clear. There were two small things that could have been improved. There was a difference between the instructions and the names printed on one the blister packs of screws, but it was pretty easy to figure out. Another minor issue that puzzled us for a minute was that the assembly guide indicated a philips head screwdriver was included. The ‘philips head screwdriver’ was actually one of the ends of an included allen wrench. Assembly was a breeze. It took the 3 of us about 30-35 minutes to assemble the pieces (it would have taken about 1/2 the time if we had a 2nd allen wrench and screwdriver of the correct size).

Trying it out
After assembly, I hopped on the treadmill, eventually pushing the speed up to about 9 mph. I was definitely working a lot harder than the treadmill was. The motor felt smooth and wasn’t very loud, although the noise from the foot strikes was a bit loud (to be expected as the speed increases). The running surface had a little bit of a bounce, giving a nice cushioned feel. Having the long belt surface made me feel pretty confident as I was running, knowing I wasn’t in danger of getting near the back edge.

As other reviews have mentioned, the console is pretty weak. The main text display area is only 2 characters! This makes it awkward to read messages as text scrolls by. I really don’t understand why they couldn’t have made it at least 3 or 4 characters, which would have made a big difference. While I don’t care much about the console for my personal use, if you are used to big displays like you see on gym machines, you will be very disappointed in this aspect.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a Polar heart-rate strap came with the package. After putting it on, the HR started showing up on the console within 10 seconds or so.

The fan is also a bit on the weak side. If you get hot while running, I think you are better off putting a “real” portable fan in front of the treadmill.

The handles are pretty short, but they were sturdy enough for me to put my entire body weight.

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

Pros: large tread size, easy assembly, strong frame, powerful motor, Polar HR compatible, folds up easily and can be rolled around

Cons: console is lame-0, fan isn’t strong

Thanks to Team Silverstein for the moving and assembly help.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 2:26 am and is filed under running, shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.