Core Health and Fitness LLC, the corporate holding group for the Star Trac and StairMaster brands, has signed a license with Nautilus Inc. to produce the TreadClimber for the commercial fitness market.

Michael Bruno, chairman of Core Health and Fitness, says his company will produce the TreadClimber in his plant in Xiamen, China. The re-launch of the TreadClimber will take place in six months to a year, adds Bruno, who hopes to have a prototype at the IHRSA show in March.

“One of the things we’re not going to do is push it and make a mistake and hurt our customers,” Bruno told Club Industry. “We feel this is a long-term successful product, potentially. We want our customers to have a good experience with it. We’re going to take our time and do it right.”

Bruno’s company acquired the Schwinn and StairMaster brands from Nautilus Inc., Vancouver, WA, last year, although Nautilus retained certain rights to the Schwinn brand. Med-Fit Systems Inc., Fallbrook, CA, also acquired certain commercial assets from Nautilus last year, but that acquisition did not include the TreadClimber.

“They interviewed numerous people, a good percentage of the big players,” Bruno said of Nautilus. “They said they had 14 different bids, they told me, and then they limited down to three and chose us.”

In a statement, Nautilus COO Bill McMahon said: “TreadClimber was extremely popular with consumers in the commercial setting, and we believe that many fitness club members will be excited to see the product and technology return. We believe that greater exposure of consumers to the TreadClimber modality is positive for the commercial market as well as our own consumer channel where Nautilus markets several models of TreadClimber directly for home use.”

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