Considerations in picking virtual rowing team

[Cyclingman1]

Hi all,

I rowed on a health club team last year for the fall challenge, but they are not entered this year. It was fun; there was real interaction among the members.

What does an online rowing team bring to the table? I suppose I'm looking for something more than just a place to post number of meters, although I'm not sure what that would entail.

Anyone have any thoughts on what constitutes a good online rowing team. And/or suggestions of good teams to be a part of?


Thanks, Jim G.

[Quatroux]

It is probably impossible to compete with real face-to-face human interaction. However, there appear to be a couple of teams on these boards that come close. Go over to the Teams Forum and you will see two active teams at the top: TimbukTOO and Luna-Tics. Both post daily around the year. I don't know much more about Luna-Tics, but TimbukTOO is a warm, inviting community. They track your stats for the challenge as well as your year-long achievements (if you also join the year round affiliation). They genuinely care about their members -within reason. We won't come to your house to bring soup if you are sick, but we will wonder where you've been if you go missing. We will welcome you back when you get better. We will have some witty comment about your last meter posting. The last thing to mention is the competition. If you are competitive, you'll find it challenging to keep up with some of the team's rowers. They really keep you on your toes.

[Carl Watts]

Hi Jim, I do like the ocassional Challenge and really only do one a year like the Fall Challange that starts in a couple of weeks.

Really I have mixed feeling about them. On one hand it's a feeling of great personal satisfaction to commit to a solid month of rowing and meet or even exceed your goals however on the other hand its frustrating that the metres are not verified.

Rowing to the RowPro team there really is no excuse for this as you just row online, your rows show in the results that everyone can see and the meters are easily uploaded to the C2 Website with a click of a mouse from the Log.

Each time I vow it's going to be my last challenge (when only 2 or 3 of the top 10 finishers row a single verified metre) untill they sort this out, however I just keep getting drawn back into it each year !!!!

Rowpro is obviously more interactive than other teams with online chat before and after the rows and you actually are rowing with others which really halps when your trying to up the meters from your usual training.

[Cyclingman1]

TimbukTOO is a warm, inviting community

When I go to my logbook, the TEAM tab, all I see is TimbukTWO. How does one join TimbukTOO? How does one know who is on the team? Is that only through names in the challenges?

Carl, not sure about the verification aspect. As I recall last year, my logbook entries automatically appeared on the team page. There was no indication about the nature of the verification. That is in individual logbook pages or in the rankings if a time is ranked.

[Carl Watts]

There is no verification while you can still manually enter any metres you want to.

There should be a column in the team and individual results that recognises IND_V, C2 Log or RowPro files only to at least give some recognition to those who want to be honest like in the Rankings.

I guess its just about the personal Challenge but the current format of the Challenges just don't work if your compedititive and looking for a top placing. Also tried to get Concept 2 to mix it up a bit instead of everything just based on the total metres rowed but they are not interested. Even a once a year Challenge with total IND_V metres and average pace would be more interesting for the serious rowers as I notice none of the quick guys on RowPro bother to enter the Challenges at all at present. The current format is typically dominated by older retired people that have all day to row at a snails pace of 2:40 and over.

[Quatroux]

TOO and TWO are the same club. One is the year round affiliation and the other is for challenges. The year round affiliations are joined in your profile settings.