The Rowing Saga

It started innocently enough.

Linzi and I signed up for a class at the community college across the street in circuit weight training. She also through that it might be nice to get some free weight training in as well. One look at the football team training with the free weights outside sent her running back to set up the circut weight training class with me instead. We took the orientation class and learned to do the shuffle from one station to the next and it circulated in and out of a bank of treadmills and stationary bikes. Also on the ground for aerobic use was a rowing machine. It was a wind resistance model and it was pretty cool in getting the heartbeat up and not pounding joints and knees and other fragile bits of the body.

That was about 1999. I have have been doing do diligence and began looking for something like that that I could work out on either in a gym that had better operating hours without a big contract and a sales pitch or to get one for home use and use it to supplement my 2to 2.5 mile daily walking routine.

Everywhere I looked it said that this is the greatest exercise machine around. It won't do much for your lower body but it is great for the abs and the upper body. The action is generated by pulling the handle toward your chest as you push yourself backwards on a tiny sled seat that follows the track.


The gyms either don't want this on their floor or it may be too hard to maintain or who knows. These machines do not seem to be available at any of the commercial gyms.

The cheap ones would not handle my weight. So I was after one that could accommodate by 350+ weight and not break down. Linzi said that she has used them in a gym and they work well. She recommended that I get a commercial gym quality one. That means that I was looking at ones that were around 1200 to 1800 dollars minimum. After a lot of web spec shopping and no local outlets for shopping, I decided to buy one through Amazon. It is made of hardwood and carries for resistance water encased in polycarbonate ball with internal paddles that press against the sides.

Amazon would not require me to pay for shipping. No taxes and they would see to it that delivery was made. They would take my Amx card and Amx would even give me a 1 percent rebate for using it. If I ordered the length of time before delivery looked like about one week. When I actually made the sale,the delivery was set at 10 days. At the end of two weeks I contacted the company that Amazon uses for its equipment asking about when I could expect delivery.

I got an email back saying that each of these were hand made on an individual basis in Rhode Island and they were indeed very high quality and that I would be very happy at the results. But they had not received any indication that mine had been made or even started. They would let me know as they assured me that they made them for all clients and they were going to get to mine in the most expedient manner possible.
They understood my concern and were refunding me 20 dollars since they could not refund the shipping as Amazon had made it free for me. They also wanted an acknowledgement by email that I had received this and understood what was going on. I thanked them for their research and waited.

Two weeks later I got an email from them saying that they had received an invoice on mine and they would forward the shipping info as soon as they got it and I could expect this info my Monday. I got a note from Amazon asking me since I bought this thing on April 4th if I could return a survey on how it all went. I ignored this and sent an email on the next Friday to the company. They responded with, didn't Amazon send you the shipping info? I wrote them back saying they did but it was awfully general and thought that you might have something more specific. The Amazon shipping info had a Fed Ex ground number that I followed up on and it just indicated that shipping info had been sent from them to Rhode Island. No goods had been shipped.

The company sent me a shipping notice again. When I ran this one through it showed that the goods had made it from Rhode Island to Connecticut. It even gave me an arrival date of May 3. So I am in anticipation of 85 pounds of exercise equipment arriving at my doorstep next week.

Then comes the salient question, which room do I set it up in.

My guess right now is the Art room, with its small HD TV and a sound barrier if the sloshing gets too tough.

Wish me luck!

Love
Pat