Scott, happy to be a very small part of your amazing creation, Uphill Athlete. I am electrical engineer by training so I tend to geek out on this stuff. I believe I understand why a the speed is a problem but not the angle. NT builds the incline trainer series treadmill for home consumption. As such they put the money into the fancy display and content (their iFit). Most people using it just don’t care. They want to be led through a workout and not think about it. They are not Training, the are exercising, a distinction I have heard you make in your podcast. The design problem is that the treadmill is household voltage. As such the motor is nowhere near as strong as a commercial 220V machine. So when you incline, the motor is not as strong as your legs, especially if you have a pack on. From a practical side you can feel it, as you incline you work harder and the machine speeds up, even though you never touch the speed controls. There could be a compensation circuit but as I stated it is not a priority for them. Why the incline does not work is beyond me. They even have a calibration mode for the machine, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t do anything. As far as it goes though, it is a great piece of equipment for a reasonable price, especially on the used market (pre COVID).
