Rockin Roland wrote:PaulS wrote:
If you have the opportunity sometime, try interval sessions switching from a grounded Erg and being on slides. While I agree that the Slides punish certain bad faults, there are other bad faults which they also forgive (and the grounded Erg punishes), making both useful tools for learning opportunities.
The last bit I just don't understand at all; having done some rowing on both the old and new model RP, I'm pretty sure that I prefer the older design (unless things are still changing on the new design) but fail to see how it is in any way superior to a C2 on slides (other than having a smaller footprint when setup or stored).
Anyway, I thought you were saving up for an OarTec or something, did that lose its lustre for some reason?
Paul,
I cannot see at all how the grounded erg punishes poor technique. We all agree that it punishes the body physically. However, from my own experiences it definetly encourages poor technique. It's so easy to just crank the handle and dump the finish on those things to cheat the flywheel into spinning a better result on the monitor. Try doing that with slides underneath and your in for a few surprises.
I never try to row poorly, on slides or otherwise, so no surprises. But more to the point of the punishment on the Grounded Erg: Rushing the recovery is punishing due to the large energy cost in reversing the bodies momentum at the catch, this is largely counteracted on Slides, hence the folks that commit that particular error perceive that slides are "easier".
Rockin Roland wrote:
I've used both next to a large mirror at our club and had a good critical look at my technique. I can get much better compression of the body at the catch with the slides than what I can on the grounded erg. I can also achieve better body angles with slides which ultimately translates to more efficient technique when out on the water.
You must be one of the very few that can do this. Virtually every study I've seen shows less stroke length when the rower is put on slides or RP, for the simple reason is that they must pull themselves into the catch position rather than having a bit of momentum assistance. Body angles should not change much, as the geometry of the machine is not changed, is it?
Rockin Roland wrote:
I've seen people with terrible technique still achieve good times on a grounded erg that would perform poorly on anything else.
Of course this is true, it can still be reduced to yanking on a chain, but NONE of these folks are threatening WR level performances, due to the technical problems, along with the genuine difficulty of doing so in any case.
Rockin Roland wrote:
I was looking at the Oartech seriously but it's out of my price range. I phoned Rowperfect last week but their new model is in Germany under further developement. Obviously they want to make sure they have a far superior product to the C2 when it finally goes into production. The model you tried must of been in the earlier stages of developement if you think it's not much different to the old model. I guess you also have to protect your interests by supporting C2.
Think what you want, perhaps you have some vested interest in the RP. The new cage design that I saw would be just right for a CBreeze to be fitted, so my interests are served by both. (Plus, if there were neve another C2 sold, just getting a CBreeze on all of the existing machines would be fine with me.)
We even have a version of ErgMonitor that will work with the RP (at least the original). You're also wrong in saying that I think the new model is not much different than the old. I'm well aware of some of the differences, and having the seat travel restricted to a much shorter range is not an improvement, IMO. It will not allow for some of the very valuable feedback of the old design on how the body movements are interacting with the overall system. i.e. the COM migration along the old style rail, which was very informative, will be severely restricted. Perhaps this will be more "user friendly", but it's even less "boat like" than the original design. i.e. less difficult to use easily. A boat is even more difficult than the original, see how the trends all fit?
I think both machines are well done, and good pieces of kit, but you're extreme view of the differences must be driven by something other than objective evaluation. I'm curious as to what that might be. Care to tell me?
