Ohiyo Gozaimasu!
Your Treadmill Sensei took a nice quiet vacation to Las Vegas (well, as quiet as Vegas can be) with Mrs. Sensei this weekend and left the DOJO far behind. I normally try to catch up on my monster backlog of reader mail over the weekends but figured I could let one weekend slip by without too much trouble. Boy was I wrong! Nearly 200 of you wrote in to ask for my advice while I was gambling and eating at buffets!
Guess that teaches me to take the day off!
In order to knock the pile down a bit I’m going to take a couple of days off from my reviews in order to answer your questions. I’ve picked three at random…and here we go:
Oh, most honorable Sensei, I seek your guidance.
I have really
enjoyed reading you reviews of elliptical trainers. I have not seen you mention
ellipticals from SportsArt. Have you worked with them? Good, Bad?? In particular I am looking at the SportsArt E82 elliptical. It seems to be well built but I
would appreciate your experienced opinion.
Greg
Thanks for the note, Greg. I’ve actually talked about a couple of SportsArt units in the past but only in the Reader Mailbag section (you can find one HERE). I really need to get around to doing some actual reviews of the units soon. But, to answer your question, I have done quite a bit of work on SportsArt treadmills and ellipticals and am familiar with the E82.
SportsArt itself is one of the older fitness companies still in business. They were founded back in the late 70s and they began manufacturing fitness equipment sometime in the early 80s (about the same time I got started!). For a long time they were best known for producing equipment for other companies. Precor, Tunturi, Schwinn and, I believe, Smooth, all had equipment designed and manufactured by the craftsmen of SportsArt. Soemtime around the early to mid nineties, SportsArt began putting out their own equipment in addition to producing product for other companies.
All in all, SportsArt is a great manufacturer with some great ellipticals. If you’ve ever seen one of their units with the adjustable stride you’ll know what I’m talking about. In fact, the SportsArt E82 you asked about has that very feature, adjusting from 17 inches up to a monster 26 inch stride. The E82 elliptical is very heavy duty and a sturdy machine. If you’ve worked out on a Precor then you’ll be familiar with how the SportsArt E82 will feel. In fact, I’d recommend a SportsArt unit over one of the Precor’s without an adjustable ramp (such as the Precor 556) any day of the week.
You really can’t go wrong with a SportsArt elliptical. I’ll try to get a more detailed review up of some SportsArt equipment very soon.
-The Treadmill Sensei
http://www.treadmillsensei.com
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