The Sole F80 Treadmill Review – Solid upgrade under $1500

Ohiyo!

We received a batch of freight damaged Sole treadmills here at the DOJO yesterday from a local dealer. Every so often a freigh company will drop a load or damage a shipment with a poorly maneuvered forklift blade and the units are brought to a repair facility like ours to see if they can be salvaged. We fix them and return them if we can. If not, the freight companies pick them up and take them away. Unfortunately, I think a lot of these repaired machines wind up on ebay and sold as new.

Anyway, in this batch of freight damage we discovered a nearly perfect Sole F80 treadmill. Since all it had was a couple of cracks in its upright support casings, your Treadmill Sensei decided to go ahead and put it together to do a quick review.

The Sole F80 has much heavier uprights than most other units at this price range…up to a good 2 inches thicker to be precise. If you’re going to be doing a lot of hard running or are a heavier runner, then the Sole F80 is going to feel quite a bit more solid and sturdy.

Aside from that the Sole F80 has a commercial style LED console very similar to what you might work out on at a gym. Standard on this unit are 10 workout programs, a 20×55 running surface, very large 2.75 inch rollers and a huge 3 horsepower motor. As with all of the Sole motors from Dyaco, you get a very big motor, running cool and at lower RPMs with a lot of torque. Sole has done an excellent job in choosing the motors for its units. They are easily the best grade motors in the $1000-$2500 range.

A great feature that no one really mentions is the hydraulic-assisted folding on the Sole F80. With one hand you can easily raise the deck in to the folded position and, with a click of the safety switch, it slowly lowers itself all the way to the ground without the painful drop a lot of other units experience.

If you need a heavier machine and don’t want to pay $1700 or more, then the Sole F80 is an excellent choice. For continued excellence, the Treadmill Sensei gives the Sole F80 4.5 out of 5 golden buddahs.

-The Treadmill Sensei
http://www.treadmillsensei.com