Cycling Invention Keeps Khanh Ngo on the Go

   “I love it — I want one,” Aliza Corder said the other day after trying out in the Reutershan parking lot the ElliptiGO outdoor elliptical bike that the irrepressible Khanh Ngo is selling out of his Park Place sports store in the village.

    “It’s so amazingly well thought out,” said Ngo, the sole seller of ElliptiGOs “between Brooklyn and Montauk. . . .  I haven’t used my road bike since I got it. There’s no impact and you get a total workout — legs, arms, core . . . by lowering the handle bars you can do push-ups! The more you lower the bars, the more of a workout you’ll get. I took it to Bridgehampton and back the other day and I was like, Oh my God. It’s got internal gearing, aluminum tubing, you can use it indoors too, on a stand. . . . It’s set up so you don’t get splashed when it’s raining. It gives me everything I need.”

    And apparently others have been captivated as well, for Ngo (pronounced ‘No’) was to have taken delivery of 16 ElliptiGOs this past Friday, eight of which, he said, had been spoken for.

    Before this writer put his right foot up on one of the platforms prior to a test ride (you stand up on an ElliptiGO, as you would on an elliptical trainer) Ngo said the “pedaling” movement should be thought of as similar to the slide and follow-through of cross-country skiing.

    “It’s great for everyone of all ages,” he said. “You can sprint, you can climb — this one has three gears, but there are other models with eight and 11 gears. . . . Even if you go at your leisure, you’ll be getting a workout, without even knowing it. . . . It’s been proved that you get 33 percent more of a workout than you would on a road bike. You can lose 20 to 30 pounds after working out on it for two months. It’s been proven.”

   When another onlooker, Tom Kaczmarek, expressed interest, Ngo, who delights in persuading people to try “new things,” told him he’d buy it back from him if he didn’t like it.     

   One of ElliptiGO’s endorsers is John Howard, the 64-year-old 1981 Ironman champion who helped the Mighty Hamptons Triathlon celebrate its 30th anniversary here last fall. “The ElliptiGO is the most innovative cycling concept since the mountain bike — I highly recommend it for cross-training cyclists and triathletes,” Howard is quoted as saying in an ElliptiGO brochure that Ngo hands out.

   “People see me on the roads and they stop me, wanting to know where they can get one,” said Ngo, who delightedly took photos as this writer made two circuits of the parking lot without incident, remarking in dismounting that even at a slow pace he could feel he’d exercised his muscles.

   “And you don’t always have to pedal,” Ngo said, following a series of figure eights. “You can coast with a drink in your free hand!”