Elliptical Review

Bargain Elliptical on Amazon

It's the holidays and I've been at work piecing together one of my wife's gifts this year.  She asked for a dirt cheap elliptical and I didn't want to get the one she picked out.  Instead, I did a little research and picked one I thought would meet her needs.  I chose the Exerpeutic 1000XI Heavy Duty Magnetic Elliptical with Pulse check.  I found it on Amazon.com for $179 and free shipping.  Amazon shipped it faster than expected (as usual).  
Here is my initial review:

The box that arrived was about 4ft X 2ft X 6in and it weighed about 75lbs.  There are many pieces that are already assembled for you, but the instructions could definitely be better.  It is unfortunate that some of the first people cut from companies are the technical writers.  I miss them!

Anyway, here are the major assemblies and hardware:

 















The owner's manual didn't have a single photo and there were a few missing screws and bolts.  It wasn't anything you couldn't get for a few cents at the hardware store (oops!  I meant Lowes).

You have to be gentle when pulling the cables up and out of the assembly.  Putting the feet on was easy with the four bolts provided.

A lot of the hardware is installed on the assemblies.  All you have to do is remove them, put the assemblies together, and re-install the hardware.

The tension adjust knob had some minor damage, but it wasn't anything that couldn't be fixed with duct tape (anything can be fixed with duct tape and super glue including people).  




There were plenty of folks that reviewed this model and some talked about spraying WD40 all inside the machine. While I found that unnecessary, I did spray a little in the end of the cable and turned the tension knob a few times to loosen the cable up.






Here is the completed machine.

It seems very solid and provided a surprisingly quiet ride.  The on-board computer displays pulse rate, distance, time, and other functions. The back feet rotate to allow for leveling of the machine, but on carpet it simply isn't much of an issue.  The stride is fairly short.  So anyone over 5'8" with long legs might have an issue.








We will do another post a few months from now to let you know how it is doing.  In the meantime, stay strong!