Above is a short video showing how the canoe adaptor works on the Concept 2 rower. Dawn (aka Sandybottomkayaker) commented after the Feb 3rd post that she'd like to modify her Concept 2 for a canoe stroke but didn't want to spend a lot of money. Well, I checked into it. The canoe adaptors we have on the rowers at the boathouse were made by Vermont Waterways. At $385 it's not cheap, especially considering I paid around $850 for my Model D Concept 2 with PM3 monitor.



As you can tell from the photo this is not a do-it-yourself adaptor. It's made of solid steel and custom cut to fit the Concept 2 perfectly. The canoe paddle shaft pulls the fly wheel through a series of pulleys. So I think it's worth $385. And my personal experience with the canoe adaptor has been that it does feel a lot like paddling in the outrigger. The tension on the fly wheel of the rower mimics the force of the water. And then you get all the rower statistics that come with the PM3 monitor.



There are other canoe rowing machines. The PaddleOne C looks very similar, but it lacks the stats monitor that comes standard with the Concept 2. And the foot position on the Paddle One looks awkward ... more like the foot position in a competition canoe and not the foot position you would use in an outrigger. So even though the Concept 2 with canoe adaptor is about $400 more ... I'd still go with the Concept 2. Rowing indoors is always boring. Without the stats monitor to keep track of my progress and race myself (through the rerow feature) I doubt I'd use it very often.

I should mention that there are also kayak specific erg units for those that want to work out kayak stroke specific muscles. Both PaddleOne ($1200 Cnd) and Speedstroke ($2000 US) sell models which mimic a kayak stroke. I've never used either but I'd be more interested in a kayak adaptor for the concept 2 than a kayak specific unit. But that's just me.

-Susanita