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Peloton, a brand that’s earned a cult-like following around the world, thanks to its stationary bikes for your home gym, is releasing a high-tech treadmill. It doesn’t ship until this fall, but we were granted early access to give it a test run.
The Good: Everything you love about the Peloton bike is now also available on the Tread. Streaming live classes (up to 10 a day) are visible on a 32″ HD touchscreen, and with strength workouts incorporated into each workout, you can follow along both on and off the Tread. Think Beyond the Ride classes, but now off the treadmill.
The machine itself is made up of 59 individual slats designed to be cushiony and smooth. The slats are similar to a Woodway (which is at the more luxurious side of the treadmill spectrum) as opposed to running on one belt. And the ride does feel good — at no point during or after did I feel pain in my feet or knees. The side panel is covered in a grey fabric that matches the sound bar on the screen. “Early on, we decided we wanted to do a lot better to incorporate it into the home and not just put plastic and metal everywhere,” Maureen Coiro, Senior Product Manager of Hardware for Peloton, says. It has a zipper, so you can store your floor mat, resistance bands, and smaller weights.
Once you hop on and are ready to run, there are two knobs on the handrails — one on each side. On your right is the speed dial and on your left is the incline. Both are very sensitive and seem intuitive. Why haven’t treadmill creators done this before? There’s no hard pressing a button to get your speed up to the number you want. And if you want to stop, you just spin the dial toward you, or press the one actual button on the machine.
The screen holds all the streaming and on-demand workouts from trainers Robin Arzon, Rebecca Kennedy and eight others. Scroll through the classes, pick the one you want and then off you go. Since you are working both on and off the Tread, the machine will tell you what extras you need like weights, mat, etc. It’s best to have them close by since you don’t want to run to the other side of the room to collect your weights during the short rest time. The workouts I’ve tested were each about 20 minutes long, taught by Kennedy or Oliver Lee, and were broken down into 10 minutes on the Tread and 10 minutes off.
So, was it hard? The more time I spend on the treadmill, the more comfortable I get with it and the faster I run. While I might not be sweating immediately, I’m certainly sweating by the time I hop off the treadmill to launch into the second half of the workout. The constant back of forth from the treadmill to floor forces your body to work hard and gives you a surprising burst of energy each time you complete a session and jump into the next. I can’t wait to test out some of the longer classes and the ones that are 100% on the treadmill.
