Xterra Trail Racer 3.0 Treadmill Review

Named after the famous off road triathlon series, Xterra Fitness equipment is produced by Dyaco, a highly respected and award-winning fitness equipment manufacturers. Following success in the US market, the Xterra range is now being introduced to the UK and we were keen to find out more about the Racer 3.0 – the entry level treadmill in the range!

First step: Assembly! We can confirm that the most challenging part of putting this together is actually getting the rather heavy base unit out of the box. The Racer 3.0 is not a pre-assembled machine, but once the main running deck is out of the box and in its place, the process is pretty straight-forward without too many steps that could go wrong. As ever, we’d advise having two people to make it easier to hold bits in place whilst securing them with screws.

Once it’s all put together, it’s clear that this is not a typical cheap and flimsy home treadmill, but a machine designed for serious use! The Racer 3.0 has a bar going across the upper part of the uprights connecting the console to the main running unit which provides additional stability and it passes the ‘shake test’ with flying colours.

For a treadmill at this sort of price point, this Xterra has surprisingly large rollers and this made us quite hopeful that the motor under the hood would be a ‘true’ 2.25 continuous duty one. Standing on the side rails (which have a nice bit of handy anti-slip material) and pressing the start button sees the motor get the running belt going quietly and smoothly and it’s clear that there’s more than ample power under the hood to run the belt over those big rollers effortlessly all the way to the machine’s top speed at 10 mph (16 kph).

Whilst the Racer 3.0 does have cushioning, the deck provides a pretty firm surface to run on, making it ideal for real running training indoor. For all but the very tallest of runners, the deck size is pretty decent at the standard ‘full size’ of 20″ (50 cm) wide by 50″ (140 cm) long.

There’s a 10% powered incline feature and once again, the incline motor makes light work of moving the deck up and down with your reviewer running on it! It should be noted that on the Racer 3.0, the maximum incline on offer is actually a proper 10% gradient and this is a higher level than we’ve seen on some other treadmills with specs that claim to have 12 or more ‘levels’ of incline.

So, the entry level Xterra clearly has a great frame and excellent quality in its running deck. What about the console? Has the investment in the high torque motor to run the belt over those big rollers resulted in a rudimentary console? Well, once again, the answer is a pleasant surprise 🙂 It’s very clearly laid out with quick speed keys on the right, quick incline keys on the left, a nice size backlit LCD display in the middle and the profiles of the programmes and the standard control buttons at the bottom.

The LCD display has a quarter mile track in the middle and dedicated windows above and below it to continuously display pulse rate, exercise duration, calorie consumed, distance, incline, program, speed. No fiddling around with a ‘mode’ button to toggle around to get to see the feedback you’re after on this machine!

In terms of programmes, it looks like a limited selection on the surface with only 6 pre-set programmes in additional the manual mode and user defined ones. However, the pre-set ones are scalable for duration, maximum speed and incline. This facility is actually extremely useful as it means that users are able to increase both the duration and intensity of their running sessions as their fitness levels (hopefully!) improve over time.

A little detail we spotted is that when selecting a programme, the console asks for the user’s age and weight and we tested this information is used to provide more personalised calorie consumption figures. Even though we’d have preferred to have seen proper, stored user profiles (to also factor in gender and height), it’s nice to see the calorie figures being displayed not just counting up in proportion to speed and incline, irrespective of the size of the person on the running deck!

Another nice touch relates to the user defined programmes. Like most treadmills with this facility, you can configure it by going through defining the speed and incline of each segment. But, on the Xterra, at the end of each session in manual control mode, you’re given the option to save session that you’ve just done as one of the user-defined programmes.

The biggest negative in terms of console features related to heart rate measurement. The only option on the Xterra Racer 3.0 is to make use of the pulse grip sensors. Apart from the fact that grip sensors are never particularly accurate (especially when the palms get sweaty during a run), it’s not reasonably possible to be grabbing the handlebars and continue running without losing your pace and stride. Given the lack of a wireless receiver for accurate heart rate measurement, the Racer 3.0 doesn’t have any heart rate control programmes.

Finally, the console has a pair of speakers and a fan. We were initially surprised by the position of the fan as the grill sits waist height which seemed a little odd. But then, we realised that it blows out air at an upwards angle and works fairly well.

The folding mechanism is among the best we’ve come across at this sort of price point and the hydraulic assistance mechanism works really well.

Finally, the warranty on offer with the machine is superb with lifetime on the frame and motor, 5 years on parts and two years labour. The unusually long motor and parts warranties are a testament to the quality of components used in the production of the machine!