Ohiyo!
Today your Treadmill Sensei would like to ruminate a bit on a fitness company a lot of American buyers may not be as familiar with, but our Canadian and European cousins have known about for many years.
The name of the company is Tunturi and they are a fitness company from Finland which has been around since the early 1920s. The company was founded by a pair of brothers who repaired bicycles. They quickly moved on to manufacturing and designing bikes. In the 1950s they began manufacturing motorcycles and mopeds.
Fast forwarding to the 1970s, Tunturi began to put out some of the best stationary fitness bikes in the world. The credo behind the company has always been well-built, simple and to the point equipment. They put out some very well constructed, very long lasting treadmills, ellipticals and bikes.
Unfortunately, at least in my mind, their designs tend to be a little outdated and simplistic for the American market. They manufacture some great machines but without all the bells and whistles seen in most of the rest of the industry.
Luckily, the Tunturi T30 treadmill is a fantastic unit which offers a lot – even if it isn’t quite as slick looking as its competition. The units are generally listed at about $1699. We received in a Tunturi T30 at the shop earlier this week to setup at a film director’s house out in Beverly Hills and I was eager to get the unit together and test it out.
Right out of the box, the Tunturi T30 was a pleasure to work with. Actual assembly on the unit was very quick and easy to do — less than 5 minutes for us, probably 20 minutes for the uninitiated.
First and foremost, the Tunturi T30 is a solid, stable and sturdy treadmill. More importantly it’s construction and components are made with the care Tunturi has been known for through its 80+ years of business. When you get on a T30 you feel like you’re getting on a rock solid piece of commercial equipment.
Next, what I like to do is pop the hood off and take a look at what’s going on with the motor. I must say, the Fins do good work. The Tunturi T30 has a very large, incredibly quiet and cool running 3.0 horsepower motor in it. In fact, the T30’s motor was one of the smoothest, most consistant feel motor I’ve seen in a very long time as well as the quietest. If you’re in an apartment or condo and need to keep the noise down then the Tunturi T30 is something to take a look at.
Let’s do a quick rundown on the rest of the Tunturi T30’s features. The unit itself weighs about 247 pounds and is rated for users up to 300 pounds — if you weigh in excess to 300 pounds you should still be fine as the treadmill is rock solid. Its top speed is 12.5 mph (20 kilometers per hour) with up to a 12% incline. A nice feature is Tunturi’s heart rate control system which will adjust not only the speed on the unit but also the incline. A lot of HRC systems on less treadmills will only adjust the speed. The T30 also has 7 preset and 3 user defined programs.
Finally, the T30 has a great 58×20 running area. Lots of room to run!
All-in-all, Tunturi has done an excellent job with these new T30 treadmills. For excellence in design and execution, the Treadmill Sensei gives the Tunturi T30 treadmill 4 out of 5 golden buddahs.
As a step about the rest of the Tunturi equipment, the Tunturi T30 treadmill gets 4 gold buddahs out of 5.
Motor: 3.0 HP
Max User Weight Capacity: 300 lbs.
Max Speed: 12.5 MPH
Max Incline: 12%
Heart Rate Monitor: Pulse grip and wireless
Heart Rate Control: Yes
Programs: 10
Display: LED
Display: Time, distance, speed, elevation, energy consumption, and heart rate
Features: Shock-absorbent T-Flex running base, remote handling speed and incline controls
Manufactured In: Finland
-The Treadmill Sensei
http://www.treadmillsensei.com
hi,thanks very much for yr recommendation. it certainly boost my confidence for buying this Tunturi model. However my concern is that, since it is foldable, does it mean it is not recommendable to run at an incline of 10 degree? Cos i Luv running at 10 and is a must for me.
also given such a high incline and a speed of 7 (and max of the machine is 12.5), is it almost like the max that the machine can support? and will not help the machine to last? thanks very much for the help, owe u big favour dr & fans of this marvellous site!
hi,thanks very much for yr recommendation. it certainly boost my confidence for buying this Tunturi model. However my concern is that, since it is foldable, does it mean it is not recommendable to run at an incline of 10 degree? Cos i Luv running at 10 and is a must for me.
also given such a high incline and a speed of 7 (and max of the machine is 12.5), is it almost like the max that the machine can support? and will not help the machine to last? thanks very much for the help, owe u big favour dr!