Blog: As The Flywheel Spins

Posted by
Kevin Stevenson
May 15, 2012

Rowing a 49+

On April 17 every year, the citizens of American Samoa in the South Pacific celebrate the anniversary of the island becoming a US territory in 1900. In addition to singing, dancing and parades, one of the most unique parts of the festival is the Fautasi, or longboat, races held in Pago Pago harbor. Schools and communities from across the islands form teams to train and row a 2.8 mile race in custom-built 49 person boats!

This year, Concept2 was approached by the Vatia village to supply a set of oars for their new Fautasi, the Fuao. Always eager to try new things, we designed and built the custom oars to the boatman’s specifications, and learned a lot about the unique aspects of Fautasi racing. We’re continually surprised with the new and unique ways that people from around the globe use Concept2 products!

At this years’ Flag Day race, the rowers from Vatia finished a very impressive fourth out of seven in the Grand Final race; this was a special finish considering that it’s been decades since a team from this village rowed in the competition. Congratulations to all the rowers of the Fuao on a great race, and we’re looking forward to following the results of the Concept2’s latest (and largest!) crew for years to come.

Posted on Tue, 15 May 2012 12:18:00 | View Comments

Tags: Oars Racing On-water Rowing

Posted by
Andréanne Morin
April 10, 2012

As I prepare for my last 2k ergo test of the season (and potentially my last ever), I’ve been reflecting on the countless tests I’ve pulled, where I was, what model I was on, what team I was trying to select for and of course, how painful it was. Every rower seems to have an outrageous story about an epic erg test. The account always seems worse than anything imaginable, and I often wonder if the story has been grossly distorted, but why get in the way of a good story, right?

That was until I saw the Gjessing-Nilson ergometer in a documentary about the 1984 New Zealand Men’s 8+ (watch 4:10 minutes in). Hands down, the rowers that were selected in the 1980s and 1990s on that machine had it twice as hard as our modern generation on the Concept2! Not only did they have to pull the bar and accelerate the flywheel that resisted by a hanging weight but they had to push it back in to take the next stroke—that is twice the work that we do on the Concept2!

Additionally, they had no monitors, but rather a simple counter to number the revolutions, and no distance was calculated. An observer would count the strokes per minute and give the athlete a stroke rate.

My own 15-year career has spanned over a few models of ergometers. My first erg test that I pulled as a young doe-eyed 15-year-old all seems so raw. Some winter night in 1996, after a day of school, I made my way to the Montreal Olympic Basin where we had four Concept2 Model Cs: a flywheel and a simple monitor. I’d set a slight opening of the plastic vent, adjust my foot height, set the monitor for the set 2000m distance and just GO!

Today, I have personalized shoes and a performance monitor that can calculate average splits per 500m or draw a power curve for each stroke or provide a bar graph of watts exerted. (Yet, one feature that I could have done with is a simple stroke counter after my coach arithmetically challenged me to do 4 x 100 stroke pieces at high rates. Without my coxswain Leslie’s assistance, I was at a loss!)

So what are your thoughts? Will the rowers of 2020 look back on the 2000 era athletes and think we were so rudimentary with our Concept2 Model D ergs? Is the future of erging with the Dynamic?

Posted on Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:38:00 | View Comments

Tags: Dynamic Erg Indoor Rower

Posted by
concept2
March 29, 2012

Our neighbors at Craftsbury Outdoor Center are playing host this week to the elite North American Nordic ski community at the 2012 SuperTour Finals and Long Distance Nationals. Despite summerlike temperatures last week that melted every flake of snow in Morrisville and most of Vermont, there is still world-class skiing at Craftsbury, thanks to a winter of snowmaking and a ton of hard work in the weeks leading up to the races.

The Men’s A Final Sprint Race

While the race course has remained in fine shape all week, there is no snow elsewhere at the venue on which racers can warm up. Concept2 supplied five Concept2 SkiErgs that have seen a lot of warm up—and cool down—action this week.

US Ski Team member Kikkan Randall on
the SkiErg between Heats

The high level racing will conclude with the 30/50k US National Championships. This mass start race is an excellent way to cap the season for both racers and spectators alike. Many of these same athletes will continue to train on the SkiErg, as preparing for next season will start soon enough!

Posted on Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:36:30 | View Comments

Tags: SkiErg

Posted by
Concept2
March 12, 2012

People row ultra-distances for various reasons. Sometimes it’s a personal goal, just to see if they have what it takes, or their teammates goad them into it and they succumb to the pressure. Other times, it’s good training for rowing across the ocean, or it’s just because there is a record to be broken. Matthew Rockett, however, a 28-year-old from Sheffield, England, set an ultra-distance world record on February 12 (Individual Longest Continual Row in 64 hours), and successfully raised money for Sport Relief 2012 and the family of his late friend and ultra-distance rower Roberta Dikeman.

Roberta Dikeman of Dublin, California, touched many people in the indoor rowing world before she passed away unexpectedly on February 7 at the age of 45 from a stroke. She was young and vibrant and passionately grabbed the reins of indoor rowing, joining the “Ducks In a Row” virtual rowing team, rowing almost 11 million meters and courageously breaking two ultra-distance world records in the process.

Says Matthew Rockett:

“I first got to know Roberta through the rowers group on Facebook when I began my first world record attempt. I got an invitation to the group so they could offer me support while I was doing it. I made a lot of friends through that group. Roberta was very supportive of my record attempts and always offered a lot of encouragement to me.”

“The donations for Roberta’s family were organized by a member of the group on Facebook while I was rowing. Personally, I don’t like asking people to donate money or putting them in a situation where they feel they have to give something. However, I was quite happy for people to offer to donate money depending on how long I rowed. During my hourly breaks from rowing, I was reading the updates on Facebook. I’m not sure some people realized, though, how long I would row. One person donated £2 for every hour I completed; another person donated €1 for every hour up until the existing 45-hour record and then €5 per hour after that.”

The indoor rowing community is an amazing network of people from all over the world. Far from being solitary rowers in basements and garages, many indoor rowers are part of something much larger—a thick, rich web of global friendships brought together by Facebook, the Concept2 Online Logbook and Training Forum. Getting to know each other online, they motivate each other to higher goals, encourage new rowers to join in their camaraderie and share in triumphs as well as losses.

Posted on Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:30:00 | View Comments

Tags: Fundraising Roberta Dikeman Rowing Community Sport Relief 2012 World Records Ultra-Distance

Posted by
Jennie Bender
March 08, 2012

Greetings Nordic ski crowd! I hope you have been able to ski now that we finally have some snow! I have been traveling quite a bit for racing and am returning home to Vermont soon for Spring Series at Craftsbury during the last week of March.

I wanted to talk about a sprint race I had recently, because it reminded me of how important double poling is. The Madison Winterfest in Wisconsin is a SuperTour Sprint weekend, where they lay down a 1k man-made loop around the state capital. The setting is very cool, because there is a mixed group of people watching the race. Some are there only because they stumbled upon it while downtown, and others are really excited about seeing snow at all, since the winter in that area has been dismal.

The first race was supposed to be a classic sprint. However, due to the hard packed conditions, mellow terrain, and short course, adding kickwax to your skis only slowed you down. Therefore, if you had the power, double poling only on skate skis was the way to go. As long as you didn’t skate, other than the allowed pushes around a corner, skate skis were much faster. Many athletes were nervous relying on only their upper body to get around the course.

Luckily, I felt pretty confident with my double pole. Although it was nerve-racking to commit to arms only, having confidence that your body can stand up to the challenge you are setting before it lets your mind focus on the finish line, instead of possible failure to get there. If double poling is a weakness, and you feel that you cheat and use mostly legs when you are on snow, it’s worth looking into the SkiErg for upper body and core strength isolation.

Posted on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:10:00 | View Comments

Tags: SkiErg Training Racing