Home exercise brand Echelon Fitness has released a new smart folding treadmill, the Echelon Stride, and it looks perfect for those of you who want a well-featured and durable running machine that doesn’t have an eye-watering price tag. With a starting price of $1,299, the Echelon Stride treadmill offers plenty of features and smarts to rival some of the best treadmills, plus it’s a mere 10-inches deep when folded flat. That makes it easier to store when not in use.
The Echelon Stride treadmill release comes a couple of months ahead of another big running machine release, the Peloton Tread. When Peloton launched its new treadmill in September, the home running brand confirmed it will have a much higher price tag of $2,495, and that it will be released in March 2021. Can't wait that long? Then here’s what you need to know about the new Echelon Stride, and why it could be worth buying now if you can't wait (or don’t have the budget) for the forthcoming Peloton…
The Echelon Stride folding treadmill at a glance:
- Costs $1,299, or from $1,339.98 with Echelon United Membership
- 55 x 20” running surface
- Integrated 18.5-inch touchscreen display
- Three-step auto-folding design
- 12 incline levels, with 10% max incline
- Thousands of live and on-demand classes
- Eight pre-programmed treadmill workouts
- Spacious ‘step-off area’ on each side
- Safety stop features
- Compatible with tablets and smartphones
You have a smaller budget: The Echelon Stride costs $1,299
When the stunning Peloton Tread was announced a couple of months back, Peloton fans weren't overly shocked by the $2,495 price tag. After all, Peloton makes some of the best home gym equipment in the world, and the Tread will no doubt be of the same high calibre as the Peloton Tread+, the brand’s current $4,295 treadmill.
Factor in the Tread’s 23.8-inch HD tilting touchscreen and built-in speakers, plus a generous running surface, and on paper it looks like a great running machine for training at home.
But what if you don’t have close to $2,500 to drop on a new running machine? Enter the Echelon Stride treadmill, which starts from a much more reasonable $1,299. That’s the cost of the machine with a free 30-day trial membership to Echelon United, the online fitness program via which you can access all of Echelon’s live and on demand classes.
With a monthly membership added on top, the Echelon Stride will cost you $1,338.99 - you’ll then be billed $39.99 a month for the ongoing membership if you want it to continue. Or, if you’d prefer, you could pay $1,699.98 for the treadmill and an annual membership.
Cheaper still is the new Mobvoi Home running machine also released in early September. It costs just $450, but it isn't as feature rich and has a smaller running surface, which means it’s best for walking and light jogging, rather than all-out running, sprinting and interval training.
Echelon makes one of the world’s best exercise bikes for spin workouts at home, the Echelon Smart Connect EX3 Max Bike, and like the bike the Stride appears reasonably priced considering what’s on offer. It’ll monitor pulse, distance, incline, time, speed and calories, in a similar way to fitness trackers, displaying it all on an 18.5-inch touchscreen. It’s smaller than the new Peloton’s 23.5-inch display, but it’s still generous.
You have little space: The Echelon Stride is a folding treadmill
So here's a very big reason to choose the Echelon Stride over the Peloton Tread: the new Peloton treadmill doesn’t have a folding design, but it is a smaller design for Peloton (the brand says its about the length of a small couch). By contrast, the Echelon Stride folds up when not in use, and has a three-step automatic folding feature that would suit smaller homes where space is more of a premium.
Basically, Echelon has designed the Stride so that when the console and handlebars are properly tucked into place post-workout, you step on a lever on the bottom of the machine and watch it fold itself down.
Wheels on the base mean you can then roll it away to lean up against a wall. When folded, the Stride measures just 10 inches deep to save more space. Only the Mobvoi rivals this, as it’s flat enough to be slotted under your bed.
You need a treadmill asap: The Echelon Stride is out now
The Peloton Tread won’t be available to buy until at least ‘early 2021’, so if you need a treadmill yesterday, you could opt for the existing Peloton Tread+, but at over $4,000, that's a big investment to make.
The Echelon Stride is available to buy now with zero shipping delays and a 30-day returns policy. Considering how hard it’s been to get hold of any decent running machine during the pandemic, this could be a deal-breaker for those of you looking to start walking and running indoors right now.
Looking for more health and fitness content? Take a look at our guide to the best online fitness training programs, or transform your road bike or mountain bike into an indoor fitness bike with the best bike trainers.
