Well. I don't quite know what to think.

I have a cross-country ski simulator. I use it pretty heavily,
for like 40 minutes a day.

This spring, I noticed it was getting tougher and tougher to use. I figured it was that I was using the wrong kind of wax on the sides of the skis. But no, turns out one of the little rubber wheels was wearing out -from the inside. Now it collapses, it's unequal, and it makes the skier unusable.

I looked at the thing last night. I'm an inveterate tinkerer and I thought that maybe I could stick something inside the drive wheel to shore it up. But I couldn't see any way to open the machine up and get at it. I contemplated the "last resort" option of cutting the rubber off and building the inside up with epoxy, then trying to seal up the cut area once I got it back on the machine.
But I figured I had better find out first if they would replace my skier (I thought probably that would be the best option - and the thing is not even 2 years old.)

So I called the company this morning. The woman was very reassuring. "Oh" she said, "those parts are meant to wear out and be replaced" (Huh? I don't remember reading that anywhere but I did lose the owners manual when I moved). She offered to send out a pair. I explained again what they were and she said yes, that was it. I said it seemed strange because it looked like there was no way to change them out. She assured me there was. I asked if there would be instructions. She said yes, that it wasn't that difficult.

So okay....I guess I trust them. I am printing out a copy of the owners manual off the website - maybe it will have some reassuring information in it. I still don't believe I'll be able to change the drive wheels, and that I'll have a giant piece of exercise equipment that has now become junk.

I was considering investing in some exercise videos and no longer going the "equipment" route. I guess I'll hold off until I see if this fix works (the bad news is that it'll take a week for the wheels to get here; I guess that means altering my schedule so I can catch Denise Austin in the mornings so I at least get some kind of a workout).