Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #193123 in Sports & Outdoors
• Brand: Sole
• Model: F85
• Released on: 2007-07-10

Features

• High-quality folding treadmill with 3.5-horsepower continuous-duty motor
• Offers speeds of up to 12 miles per hour and inclines of up to 15 percent
• Vibrant tri-color display tracks speed, incline, time, distance, calories, pace, and more
• Six preset workout programs, two custom programs, and two heart rate programs
• 20-by-60-inch running deck; lifetime warranty on motor, deck, and frame

Amazon.com Product Description
The top model in Sole's folding series and the company's number one seller, the F85 treadmill is a great fit for serious workout enthusiasts. The F85 boasts a powerful 3.5-horsepower, continuous-duty motor--the most powerful in the Sole line--that delivers speeds of up to 12 miles per hour and inclines of up to 15 percent. The club-style tri-color LED display, meanwhile, includes a message board for clear instruction and feedback, while also tracking your speed, incline, time, distance traveled, calories, pulse, and pace. There's even a 1/4-mile track feature that you can follow as you run and a peak-and-valley graph that corresponds to individual programs. And when you're not using the treadmill, it folds into a compact footprint and locks securely in place, thereby saving a ton of storage space.

The F85 is outfitted with a host of additional user-friendly features, including six auto workout programs, two custom programs, and two heart rate control programs for cardio or weight loss. The heart rate programs are particularly valuable, as they automatically calculate your recommended target range based on your age, ensuring the safest and most efficient workout possible. And users with creaky joints with love the Cushion Flex treadmill deck, which is built to protect your knees from excessive pounding, with the ability to reduce impact up to 40 percent compared to running on asphalt. Other details include armrest incline and speed controls; an extra-large 20-by-60-inch running surface; a wireless chest strap that measures your heart rate; and armrest cooling fans. The F85 treadmill, which offers a user capacity of up to 400 pounds, carries the following warranties: lifetime on the motor, deck, and frame; five years on the electronics, belt, and rollers; and two years on the labor.

Specifications:

• Motor: 3.5 HP continuous duty, DC type, ultra high torque
• Speed: 0.5 to 12 mph
• Incline: 15% maximum, rack and pinion gear design
• Weight: 280 pounds
• Deck Size: 33 x 80, Cushion Flex Shock Absorption Whisper Deck
• User Weight: 400 pounds
• Running Surface: 20 x 60
• Belt: Double woven, 2-ply
• Rollers: 2-3/4 inches
• Folding: Yes, with the Easy Assist folding feature
• Heart Rate Control: Yes, wireless chest strap included
• Hand Pulse Grips: Yes, and arm rest speed/incline controls
• Display Color: Tri Color (red, green, gold)
• Message Window: Yes, scrolling information
• Standard Programs: Six
• User Defined Programs: Two
• Heart Rate Programs: Two
• Cooling Fans: Yes

Manufacturer's Warranty
Motor - lifetime, deck - lifetime, frame - lifetime, electronics/belt/rollers - 5 years, labor - 2 years

About Treadmills
Walking is still considered one of the most beneficial cardiovascular exercises for people of all ages, body types, and fitness levels. As a fundamental form of aerobic training, walking has numerous physical benefits for the heart, lungs, and circulatory system, while also increasing muscle tone and burning fat calories. Treadmills provide a convenient way to regularly exercise in all weather conditions in the comfort and safety of your own home.

From beginners just starting an exercise regimen to advanced athletes looking to maintain their fitness level, anyone interested in getting and staying in shape can benefit greatly from regular use of a treadmill. Treadmills allow you to determine the pace, distance, and complexity of the workout based on your needs, all while watching television, talking on the telephone, or reading a magazine. Much easier on sensitive joints like the knees and hips, treadmill walking and running surfaces are typically long, padded platforms that allow ample room for a long stride and comfortable, low-impact walk or jog without the harsh contact of a concrete surface.

While many different types, styles, and price ranges of treadmills exist, many of them offer unique features like a fold-up design for easy storage, an electronic display monitor showing speed, distance, workout time, incline level, and burned calories, and EKG grip pulses to monitor the heart rate while exercising. Regardless of the simple to complex features you may choose, treadmills offer an array of aerobic exercise opportunities that will provide long-lasting beneficial cardiovascular results without a commute to the gym or a jog in the rain.

About Sole
Sole brings over twenty years of treadmill and fitness product design and manufacturing to the table in their line of innovative equipment designed for fitness-conscious people. The company's treadmill line is simple in design, with an emphasis on quality and warranty all at a great price. Sole's easy-to-use treadmills offer a great value and feature a convenient, space-saving portable design. The treadmills have a very stable base with four wheels for ease of movement, folding decks to conserve space, and a 30-year motor and lifetime deck and frame warranty. Sole is always looking for ways to make their equipment better, more efficient, with higher quality at a great price.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic construction and user feedback
I've cycled through various exercise machines throughout the years. I started on stair climbers, moved to ellipticals and have finally decided that, for me, treadmills are the best combination of forced pace, variety and natural movement. I've used a half dozen models of treadmills and easily rank this Sole model as the top one I've used.

The machine is rock solid with a large deck comfortable for running or walking. The motor and rollers are larger than any comparable machine I compared against, which will hopefully keep this treadmill running smoothly for many years to come. The folding feature saves a ton of space in my combination office/workout room. When unfolding, the machine utilizes a piston mechanism which slowly lowers the deck without the need for user interaction. Pretty cool the first few times you see it happen.

For me, exercise motivation is highly tied to user feedback. The Sole F85
provides a solid mix of elements here, displaying your current speed, incline, time elapsed, distance traveled, calories burned, heart rate and heart rate as a percentage of you maximum based upon the age you've entered (my favorite). If you have this main indicator section covered up by a magazine or book, Sole cleverly has positioned a compact version of these indicators below the magazine rack (time, distance travelled, calories burned, pulse, speed, incline, calories/hour and current pace)

A happy surprise for me was that the F85 splits the workout into 20 intervals which, for the user programs, allows a ton of customization and variations. Besides the expected speed and incline bars, there is a 1/4 mile track indicator on the console which simulates your progress around a, you guessed it, 1/4 mile track. There is also a message section on the console which walks you through various setup taskes like setting up user programs and setting user weight and age. This makes executing these tasks exceptionally simple. The message section also shows a post-workout summary when you are done (avg. speed, avg. incline, avg. heart rate, and avg. min/mile)

I have had nothing but positive experiences with this machine (had it for about 2 months and used it about 38 times so far). I have interacted with Sole customer care a couple of times to ask questions (eg, what is the formula for how calories are calculated by the console) and have been very pleased with their turnaround time on questions and overall helpfulness. For my one of my questions, I put it in on Saturday night and had the response I needed on Sunday afternoon. Impressive.

The programs options are:
* Manual
* Hill
* Fatburn
* Cardio
* Strength
* Interval
* User1 (user defined)
* User2 (user defined)
* HR1 (70% of max heart rate)
* HR2 (90% of max heart rate)

Pros:
* quick and courteous customer support
* rock solid construction and operation, feels very stable and secure
* was very easy to setup once lugged into place
* long warranty (lifetime: frame/deck/motor, yrs: electronics)
* large motor and rollers (3.5HP)
* great user feedback via the console
* includes a chest strap for hands-free heart rate monitoring
* two user programmable workouts
* built in fan (which are small, but actually make a difference)
* speed and incline controls on the handle
* message area on console to ease programming
* smooth and quiet operation (my daughter watches TV while I'm on it)
* it's working! I'm motivated and in much better shape already!

Cons:
* not anything significant, mostly feature requests
* I sometimes hit the speed and incline controls on the handle by accident, but I shouldn't be grabbing the handles during my workout anyways ;)
* it's a heavy mother. took all of me and a friend to get it upstairs. Once setup, this weight becomes a plus though (see rock solid construction above)
* would like a third user programmable workout (feature request)
* would like an interval countdown indicator (feature request)
* would like to load programs on a memory card and load them into console (feature request)

George Plesa, Pine Mountain Club, Ca.
I've had my sole F-85 for 16 months and I could not be happier with it. I always thought treadmills were for wimps but after 40 years of running outside my hard parts got soft and my soft parts got hard and I had to give up running. Just for fun I tried a treadmill and discovered I could run again because the treadmill absorbed the pounding the body takes running. I did my research and decided on the F-85 based on The Treadmill Doctor's reviews and the Sole warranty. In the perfect world you should run on the treadmill before you buy but that just isn't practical. There is a lot of junk out there to test drive. Besides Sole allows you to return it within 30 days if it doesn't work for you. At the time I bought mine they would pay the return shipping but I think the policy has changed a little. Sole has one of the best warranties in the business and the customer service is superb. On any major purchase I go for the warranty. That tells me what the manufacturer thinks of their product. Sole gives 2 years on labor and you will not find that on many treadmills. I called the customer service before I bought the product just to see what it was like. No call center in some far off third world country but rather I got helpful people in Salt Lake City that wanted my business. Every time I've called Sole I've gotten immediate help without going through a long menu and then fossilizing while on hold. I just spoke with a service rep this morning about treadmill lube and since there had been a mix up in my online order he comped the lube and it's on the way. I didn't even have to beg, the service rep said it's on us. Not a big deal but the point is Sole wants happy customers. The machine is solid to run on, folds up with one hand, and is reasonably quiet.