Smooth Fitness was established in 1984 as a bricks and mortar fitness specialty store and made the move to on-line sales in 1996. Today Smooth Fitness is the only manufacturer of fitness equipment that sells primarily on-line (90% of total sales are on-line). By eliminating the overhead of retail operations, they can offer their products at a lower price they claim 45% lower.

Their product lines include home gyms, treadmills, and elliptical trainers. Since the Internet is their primary sales channel, they are focused on servicing customers who purchase on-line. Smooth Fitness offers a 30-day money-back guarantee and all treadmills and elliptical trainers are backed by a 1-year in-home repair warranty.

They provide an extensive nationwide network of certified technicians and also encourage customers to email questions to their support group. I can attest to their responsiveness to email questions. The Smooth Fitness Director of Internet Sales promptly answered all emails I submitted inquiring about the Smooth CE.

Smooth Fitness Elliptical(s):

The selection in Smooth ellipticals is currently limited to one model - the CE. The PE, an entry level, low-end trainer and the ME are no longer available. Actually, with an elliptical trainer as nice as the Smooth CE, Smooth Fitness only really needs to offer the one model.

The Smooth CE is a joy to workout on and that's owed to its solid feel and smooth motion. Kettler, a company that is well known for building quality elliptical trainers, manufactures the Smooth CE elliptical trainer in Germany.

The Smooth CE inherits the sleek styling and German engineered quality of its Kettler counterparts. Its also easy on the eyes. Many cheap elliptical trainers are clunky looking, plastic-clad eyesores. Not so with the Smooth CE elliptical trainer. There seems to be a more aesthetic approach to elliptical trainer design in Europe. This is also evident in the Tunturi C6, which is manufactured in Finland by Tunturi Fitness.

Since the Smooth CE is sold factory-direct, it is not possible to test one out prior to purchase unless you happen to know someone who already has one. Smooth Fitness is aware that this may concern some customers, so they offer a 30-Day money back guarantee. So be sure to save the shipping box and all packing material until you're certain you want to keep it. However, you may agree that this is a fair price to pay in order to save up to 45% by buying factory-direct on-line.