Don’t you just love oars with snazzy designs and fresh looking colors? They look cool. But how do you get there…paint the oars, right? Yep, you can, or you can do this: And save yourself time, headaches, and a mess. I just did 2 sets of eight, and love the results. If you’re thinking about […]
3 Steps To a Sparkling Clean (and faster) Rowing Shell Hull
[This post has been updated from an older version. It contains links to products I like, or are recommended by smart people I trust.] Here’s a great question from one of my readers. She asked about how to keep her rowing shell hull sparkling clean: We have a 1 year old Vespoli light 8, painted […]
Osgood Used To Row…A Debt Owed To John Hooten
I have an unpaid debt in the rowing world… Years ago I was flipping through a magazine. I saw a cartoon that started a change in my life. See, as a kid I never took things very seriously. Heading off to college, I got sucked into rowing, and soon found myself deeply immersed in a […]
Repurposing An Old Rowing Shell
Repurposing: the process by which an object with one use is transformed or redeployed as an object with an alternative use Rowing equipment gets old. When repairs and rehab no longer work magic, what do you do with that old, old rowing shell? Here’s one answer… There are certainly other options, such as donating to […]
Make Rowing Practices More Effective (and Safer)
The world around us keeps getting more complex. That complexity means things can easily go wrong. And rowing practices are no different. Yet disasters are often avoid, and there’s one very-simple-tool that has helped people such as: passenger pilots, improve their safety record surgeons, increase success rate while reducing patient healing time construction engineers, communicate […]
The advantage of blended rowing
As I write this it is 29 degrees, snowing and just plain icky outside. But soon, it’ll be time to move from indoor rowing to outdoor rowing. Improved weather and warmer water signal a switch from one type of rowing equipment (indoor rowers — AKA “ergs”) to another (shells, sculls and oars). Exciting times. And […]
How to predict a team’s 2k erg score in 20 seconds
I’m not a great believer in predictions, especially when it comes to human effort. There’s too many variables that come into play. Yet, I sincerely believe in “edu-guessing” (making educated guesses) that get close to reality. That holds true when trying to a predict a team’s 2k erg scores. How to predict a team’s 2k […]
How to Select Rowing Rigging Numbers for Beginners
Rowing equipment has gone through a significant revolution the past ten years. There’s been new oar designs, wide acceptance of the Euro-style rigger, advancement in foot stretchers, and the continued development of new materials. These improvements have meant significant changes in the rigging numbers used for the leverage measurements (oar length, spread, span, etc), and foot […]
How To Improve Your Erg Racing On Race Day
Erg racing is NOT like a normal rowing race. Besides the “inside” aspect, there’s the main difference of a “shared-machine.” You race, then I race, and then someone else, and so on…all on the same machine. With that “shared-machine” perspective facing you on indoor-rowing race-day, there are a few simple actions you should take to […]
The Rowing Lesson of 1 Percent
[This post is a significant update to the original post The Little Things] Little things count. That’s the rowing lesson I got from reading Tom Peters’ book The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE. Never heard of Tom Peters? He’s crusty. He has an axe to grind. But he makes up for all of that because […]
