I want to get into shape for skiing BEFORE this next season instead of letting the skiing itself get me into better condition. I am going to buy either a Bowflex or a Weider Crossbow. Have any of you used both where you could give a recommendation either way? The Crossbow sells for about half of the price of the Bowflex....That appeals to me... Any input from the group? Regards, Mitch Pallotta P.S. Mark are you still producing the Perfect Pull?

P.S. Mark are you still producing the Perfect Pull? You can make your own (if you must) for about 10 bucks in pipe. Tom

P.S. Mark are you still producing the Perfect Pull? You can make your own (if you must) for about 10 bucks in pipe. Geeze Tom, you've got me beat! I'd love to see your plans for a $10  Perfect Pull. It cost me $1200 in 5 prototypes, beta testing and a lot of design time before I came up with the final design and at the end of that I still didn't have my first production piece. BTW I've only gotten 6 requests for Perfect Pull's this November and still have dealers asking what it will take to carry my product and I haven't advertised in almost two years.  Two of my recent requests are repeat customers who wanted one for a friend. I hated sending people away empty handed, but I don't have the time and it didn't make me enough money to keep it in production.

BTW I've only gotten 6 requests for Perfect Pull's this November and still have dealers asking what it will take to carry my product and I haven't advertised in almost two years.  Two of my recent requests are repeat customers who wanted one for a friend. I hated sending people away empty handed, but I don't have the time and it didn't make me enough money to keep it in production. Since you are all set up, these should be high margin now, no? Tom

Since you are all set up, these should be high margin now, no? Tom you have oversimplified this without knowing all the details.  If I manufactured other equipment so I could buy in large bulk and had the welding, degreasing or sand blasting, painting or powdercoating all done in house with better control over everything it could have been high margin, but my production runs were never large enough to earn me clout and with all these companies taking their margins along the way it was not high margin by a long shot. The effort involved by me personally with these small production runs is prohibitive. The important thing is that if I had it to do over again I would do it completely different which means I learned something. With the connections I have now and what I learned I could have done a lot better with it financially. Unfortunately, to do it right and get costs down I would need to do a large production runs periodically in China and while I could do that now, I am not willing to sink the capital into this to make that fly. Ironically I would only have to go about 8 grand more in debt than I did initially, but I am not ready to release the Perfect Pull II or Perfect Pull Pro yet.  Maybe someday I'll do it, but right now I have a LOT more on my plate at work and I can't afford to have my attention divided.