The standard bearer of the Smooth Fitness elliptical trainer line, the original Smooth CE, has quietly disappeared from Smooth s Website. On hiatus perhaps, getting a well-deserved rest, maybe to return again someday or finally striding off into the sunset never to be seen again like its siblings the PE and ME? Only time will tell for sure.

Before the disappearance of the original CE, Smooth Fitness came out with a line of American designed ellipticals in 2005. This line consists of the Smooth CE 2.1, CE 3.2, and the CE 7.4 behemoth. Weighing in at 210 lbs and wielding a massive 85 footprint, the CE 7.4 requires a lot of elbowroom. The CE 7.4 is the Shaq

of elliptical trainers. You definitely don t want to cram this beast into an efficiency apartment or even a spare bedroom that isn t spacious enough to hold it!

That s what was so great about the original Smooth CE. It only stretched out to 55 and yet it was stable enough to provide an extremely smooth elliptical workout. This was owed to its substantial 48 lb flywheel. Simple physics, the heavier the drive system, the smoother the motion.

But don t give up hope just yet. The arrival of the Smooth CE Plus fills the void left by the disappearance of the Smooth CE. Like the original CE, the CE Plus is another rebranded elliptical trainer from Kettler

(Kettler EXT7) manufactured in Germany for Smooth Fitness.

Kettler is a German toy and fitness manufacturer who puts their unique metal tubing manufacturing and cutting processes to good use in their products. This is particularly evident in their high-quality elliptical trainers. The Smooth CE Plus has a very solid and durable steel frame, which Smooth is so confident in, that they back it with a lifetime warranty.

What s really unique about the Smooth CE Plus is its extended 19 stride length. One of the drawbacks of the original CE was its shorter stride length of 16 , which presented limitations for some people over 6′2″. You can stand well over 6′ and still get a quality elliptical feel

on the Smooth CE Plus. But how is such a long stride length possible in an elliptical trainer with such a small footprint?

A little investigation reveals a patented technology that Kettler calls Extended Motion . The foot pedals glide on rollers along the foot rails. This allows for a smoother feel and is also the secret behind the extended motion. This actually introduces a bit of the old-time NordicTrack skier feel to the CE Plus and in addition, may help alleviate some of the numb feet symptoms that occur with fixed pedals on most other elliptical trainers.

Siemans, another German company known for quality products, makes the LCD console on the Smooth CE Plus. A weakness of the

original Smooth CE was its hard to see and confusing LCD display. The LCD on the Smooth CE Plus is larger as well as backlit for better viewing. I still prefer a commercial style LED dot-matrix display like Smooth uses on their American designed ellipticals such as the CE 7.4, but the CE Plus console is decent enough.

The great stability of the Smooth CE plus comes from its 50 lb flywheel (2 lbs heavier than the original CE) and overall unit weight of 200 lbs, which is only 10 lbs lighter than the massive CE 7.4! It’s truly amazing that Kettler got this into a 55″ footprint when the CE 7.4 consumes 85″ of space!

So if you don

t have a lot of space to work with and you don t want to sacrifice quality for a compact machine, then you really can t go wrong with the Smooth CE Plus elliptical trainer.

Rich Rojas covers the fitness equipment industry and elliptical trainers in particular. Check out his complete [http://www.ellipticalhome.com/smooth-ce-plus-review.html] Smooth CE Plus Elliptical Trainer Review and articles on health and fitness at http://www.ellipticalhome.com