Deth

Once in a while you come across a product that cost significantly more than other products like it. Often times it’s not really worth paying more but in the case of our Concept 2 rower it was worth it. Granted I’ve not personally used any other brands of rower but have read of the issues people have had with them.

I’ve seen the Concept 2s abused in Crossfit gyms and not having any issues except lack of maintenance. One rower in the years that I went to a Crossfit gym went down. The owner wasn’t mechanically inclined so he didn’t fix it very quickly but he could have. I don’t think that he even oiled the chains because they always seemed to be dry.

They sell nearly every replacement part for the rowers on their website and all for a reasonable price. I chose to get a new handle for our rower because to be honest we just never cleaned the old one and it got all grimy from chalk, dust and sweat and maybe the oils from the dumbbells. Apparently we’ve tried the wrong products to clean it because I googled it and Windex seems to be the thing to use and it worked pretty good. Oh well, I had already ordered the new one for a very fair price of $25 or so shipped.

On the part page they even tell you what other product numbers go with it. Like which U bolt and nuts you would have to order if you needed those for the handle too. Even those are fairly priced.

Other than the handle the only other money we’ve put into the rower was the retrofit kit to upgrade from the PM4 to PM5. We wanted the Bluetooth option and the PM4 only had ANT+. The other reason we wanted to upgrade was that the PM5 had a USB port to connect the phone to. It’s nice to just be able to use a USB stick to record my rows rather than buying the old log card and adapter. Of course the PM5 came out the year after I bought our rower but the retrofit kit was fairly priced and well worth the money. That was optional and not necessary though.

They seem to have every part available for the rower. If I were wealthy and could afford it I would be tempted to see if I was able to get all of the parts and build a whole new rower from parts. I I drop my bar on the rower and break something I know I can get replacement parts. Obviously I don’t want to do that.

There hasn’t been anything that we had to get for it. The stuff we got was purely optional. The only actual maintenance we’ve done it is oiling the rower’s chain once in a while. We really should remove the cover sometime and clean the flywheel but we haven’t done that yet.

The rower certainly wasn’t cheap compared to some of the others that you can find but I’d rather pay once for something that will last than going by the very mixed reviews on others. Sometimes you get what you pay for and in the case of our rowing machine we paid for quality. I knew we’d get lots of use out of it and I really see no reason why it shouldn’t last the rest of our life outside of some damage caused by something external. I personally have over a million meters rowed myself on it. I didn’t record them all the first year so I don’t have an exact number. I even used it to do some lighter rowing while I was infected with COVID19 to keep the blood flowing.

The fact that these rowers hold their values like they do is also telling of the quality of them. If we wanted to we could probably sell it right now for a hundred or two dollars off from what we paid for it after using it for seven years. Sorry but I don’t see that happening any time soon short of an emergency.