Rowing bicycles

pz1800 · Post by **pz1800** » May 5th, 2008, 10:52 am

A month or so ago I was in London, at Hyde Park corner, when I spotted something bizarre out of the corner of my eye - a guy on a bicycle that was powered by rowing. The guy flashed by quite quickly and he was a few hundred metres away, but it seemed to me that his feet were sliding but the seat was fixed. Cool, I thought, how to unite my two passions ... but now I have checked the web, it seems a little, shall we say, 'hard' to me? I think I will unite my two passions by rowing and riding, and leave the fusion to others. It looked quite fun in the way a unicycle might be fun - it takes you a long time to master, and once you have there seems to be little point except that you can do it because you can.

Does anyone have any experience?

pz1800 · Post by **pz1800** » May 5th, 2008, 10:55 am

hmm - not really the best choice of forum for the subject, sorry.

Bob S. · Post by **Bob S.** » May 5th, 2008, 11:22 am

pz1800 wrote:hmm - not really the best choice of forum for the subject, sorry.

It's quite O.K. Take a look at:

http://www.rowbike.com/

It is kinda slow to open because it has some videos of the gadget in use, but it has a lot of information. There are probably other companies as well. I have seen one (at a rowing club) that was a recumbent type. I see that in this one the seat moves, but you can probably find a fixed seat/movable footboard type on the web as well. I found this one by just googling Rowbike. I think that the main problem with them would be the intermittent power application going up hills.

Bob S.

Edit: Here's another with fixed seat:

http://www.rowingbike.com/main.php

Citroen · Post by **Citroen** » May 5th, 2008, 11:48 am

Been discussed in depth over on the other forum.

http://www.concept2.co.uk/forum/viewtop ... =3&t=15802

pz1800 · Post by **pz1800** » May 5th, 2008, 1:37 pm

thanks for the information. The tandem in the rowingbike site looks like possibly the least fun I could imagine for either rider. I think I will be content to watch.

Bob S. · Post by **Bob S.** » May 6th, 2008, 11:28 am

pz1800 wrote:thanks for the information. The tandem in the rowingbike site looks like possibly the least fun I could imagine for either rider. I think I will be content to watch.

It certainly looks crazy enough, like they are doing a tug of war. But it seems likely that it is set up in such a way that one of them is going backwards. It is not likely that they would go to the trouble of building an unridable bike just for a gag. I wouldn't want to be the guy going backwards — I have had enough of that rowing boats. But I don't think that it would be too hard for the guy in front.

Bob S.