- So, there's pretty much one constant in every
single one of our videos.
And that is the Concept 2 machine.
However, there are a lot more machines out there.
What would happen, if I could find a ten dollar machine,
instead of having to pay a 1000, for the Concept Two.
Let's figure that out.
Alright, so I got a beat on a ten dollar rowing machine,
that's at a consignment shop, about a mile, mile and a
half from my house.
We're gonna go, see if that actually exists and if it does,
we picking it up and we're gonna come back and
review this thing.
So, (laughs), let's just go see.
(lively bango music)
(light rail horn)
This is the consignment shop, been hunting around,
and I didn't see anything until,
(laughing)
"Rowing machines"!
"You're coming home with me".
(lively bango music)
(truck engine)
(hip hop music)
(upbeat music)
"Oh, man it really happened, $10 dollars,
and we got this guy"!
All of it, hydraulic based, Tunturi ,
Tunturi, rowing machine.
I don't even know if it works?
It was hiding behind an armoire.
(upbeat music)
(hip hop music)
So we've got the two machines, let's take a look
at our two contenders individually, and see what
we're up against.
So, rowers typically don't consider any other machine,
other than the Concept 2 and maybe RP3, as legitimate
machines in the world of rowing, but that's primarily
because those machines allow for legitimate testing.
So, you get data that you can spread across anybody
who uses the machines; it's trusted data.
And use can use it to stack up against one another,
as well as the algorithms that they use, are relatively
similar to what you're going to find on the water.
So, you're not going to see this huge discrepancies.
The other thing, is that so many people have adopted
these machines; that it means that they are very usable.
And that's really where Concept 2, has a leg up on
the rest of the market.
Now, are there a whole bunch of other affected machines?
Absolutely, but what we're talking about is can you get a
great workout out of a 10 dollar machine?
"Yes", 10 dollars, technically I think it was
ten eighty three, because I had to pay tax;
we're in California.
But, the question is, how did these two things stack
up against one another?
Now, let's begin taking a look at each of the machines
before we get started.
Our first competitor, I'm going to
pronounce as, "Tunturi".
It's originally a finished brand.
And I don't know a whole lot about it.
It's not a brand that I heard of before,
but apparently they created the first, the world's
first cycling ergometer; indoor roaring ergometer,
back in 1969.
So, let's take a look at the stats on Tunturi.
Tunturi, "somebody correct me on the comments below, please.
First, the Tunturi is originally from Finland.
Tunturi means, Big Mountain in Finnish and this is
a finished based company.
In 1969, they created the world's first home trainer
with an ergometer.
Now, that piece is interesting, because the Concept 2
is called an, "erg".
Which, is short for ergometer and that is why it's called
an erg, it's because it's an ergometer machine as well.
The model that we have appears to be pre 1990.
It is piston driven and it's sculling based.
You could argue that the Concept 2 machine, is a
machine sweet based machine.
Meaning, that both hands are connecting to one erg handle
on the Tunturi, you are, one
erg handle per hand, if that makes any sense.
Now, let's take a look at the Concept 2; our challenger.
And now the Concept 2 breakdown, our challenger,
to the, Tunturi.
Concept 2, founded in 1976.
The erg as you know it, was created in 1982.
The thing that you may not know about Concept 2, is that
they actually started by making racing erg's for the
rowing community.
They did not start as a rowing machine company, if
you're in the fitness world and you only know their indoor
rowing side; understand that they do have a much larger,
"not necessarily sure, larger is the right
way of putting it"?
But, they do have a large erg production side,
and that is another big piece of their business,
and actually how the company was started.
Other than that, I don't really feel like I need to
do a whole lot, because you probably know the
machine pretty well.
So, let's get into actually looking at these two
machines against one another.
Our 10 dollar verses our 1000 dollar machine.
Now, before we get started, there are is one thing
we need to make sure we do, at that's to lay out
some appropriate criteria for me to judge these two
machines against one another.
Otherwise, I mean, it's still gonna be purely my subjective
decision on this thing.
But, having some criteria makes it a lot more fun,
it gives me something to actually look at between
the two machines.
So, let's take a look at what those are.
Number one, is going to be, space consumption.
- [Man] "You can't fit in there".
- Bet you I can.
(laughing)
How much space does it take up, is it convenient
for where you live.
And storage purposes, because often storage's that
are premium in most of our homes.
Number two, is going to be tracking; as in data tracking.
How much data and feed back are you getting
from the machine.
Number three, is style.
(erotic music)
How good does these things look?
Number four, is gonna be maintenance, as in the
ability to maintain them.
(light music)
And hard are easy it is to find parts, work on it
yourself, so on and so forth.
And number five, is price.
(TV show clip)
(laughs)
Of course, this is a price comparison; 10 dollars
verses a 1000 dollars for a rowing machine.
And so, ultimately that is definitely going to be
apart of this discussion.
Number one, is space consumption.
Now, let's start with the Tunturi.
On that machine, everything is fixed.
However, it is significantly shorter.
There is no front angle towards the flywheel.
There is no flywheel at all.
It's piston driven, those pistons
live along side the monorail.
Everything is very compact, in fact as you
can tell from the intro, I was very easily able to
get this in and out of my mini, and actually much
easier than I can with Concept 2, although I can
also get a Concept 2 in my car.
Now, that brings us to Concept 2.
Now, if you leave the machine as one unit, it takes
up a significant amount of space.
It's taller, it's not wider, but it is taller for sure.
And if you were to leave it as one unit, it would be
more cumbersome and take up more space.
However, it is take apart able.
Take apart able, it breaks in half.
Many people don't know that, it's simply a
liftable lever, and the two pieces come apart.
The monorail is one side and the flywheel as the other.
So, with that being said, you could argue that they
are about the same, in storage size, if you're
willing to take it apart whenever you're not using
it and storing it.
However, whenever you go to use it, it is going to
consume much more space than the Tunturi.
So, in this column, I'm going to give the V to the
Tunturi, because I believe that, that compactness
just can not be, there's no way to make it bigger;
it is that size.
Where as Concept 2 when you go to use it, it's gonna
take up more space.
Now, that could also be already viewed as an advantage
for it's mechanics, but we'll get to that in a second.
Number two, is gonna be data feedback.
I don't know what to say on the Tunturi side on this one;
there is no data feedback.
There's nothing, I get, there is no ergometer.
Which is quit interesting considering they created
the first ergometer based indoor bicycle.
Perhaps, this is a pre bicycle version.
I looked at photos of that 1969 indoor cycling ergometer.
The designs actually look very close to one another.
The same green logos, the stripped
logo design, the white.
It all looks pretty similar, perhaps it was pre 1969,
before before they had the idea to throw an ergometer
on to the machine, and that's the version we got.
So, on data feedback on the Tunturi; we got a big fat,
(zero noise)
On the Concept 2 side, it is the world standard.
What more can you say?
Pretty much everybody follows along with that monitor.
You can link to your online log book, you can compete
with people around the world.
There's really no argument here,
V goes to Concept 2 on this one.
Number 3, is gonna be style.
Now, it would just be so easy, to give the feed
to Concept 2 on this one.
Its sleek, black lines standing with that sun
reflecting off of the monorail just makes it seem
like this towering, beauty of a machine, looming
over the old vintage; fading away Tunturi.
However, there's something charming about the Tunturi.
It is, this kind of 70's ish, modern design, the green
logo just is calling to me a little bit.
Something about the, the like kind of peeling
felt on the foot boards and I can smell, I can
actually smell oil coming out of the pistons,
when I'm working out.
It's a bit visceral, if you will.
Yeah, it doesn't necessarily move you through
the proper mechanics of the movement.
It's like rowing through sludge with bungees on your boat.
But the style, the look of it.
It reminded, like it's what my grandparents
had in their basement.
The, the found, the earliest memory I have of a rowing
machine would be, something very like the Tunturi, Tunturi.
Where it's like this small compact; it was in
their guest bedroom.
I remember as like a ten year old, I'd jump on the
thing, and I had no idea what it was about.
But something about that vintage feel is just super
cool to me.
Like, I'm not sure if I'm gonna give up this machine
after this videos over; it might live in my garage.
Unless someone makes me a compelling offer to but it off me;
I think it might live in the dark horse HQ garage
for a while.
Man, this one's a tough fey.
I'm like , I'm inclined to give, I'm gonna
call this a tie.
I mean, yeah modern, sleek, cool; it's like the
runway model of machines goes to the Concept 2.
It's just a perfect, it's perfect in so many ways.
The Tunturi, is this cool eclectic, like 70's,
like 70's; I don't know what the vibe is.
But it's just a little bit off, and I kind of dig that.
So, I'm gonna call this one a wash, both are gonna
take the V on this one.
And number four, is gonna be maintenance.
One this one the Tunturi is very outdated.
I was able to find on some very old obscured
sights, like Sears; "what was it"?
Searsdirect.com, I found a very old manual and parts
explosion of the machine and a website that actually
carried some replacements parts.
So, yeah the parts may still exist in order to
fix this machine.
But, from a perspective of ease, and how am I going
to be able to maintain this thing; I don't think it's going
to go very well.
Now, on the Concept 2, this thing is as easy as it
comes to maintain.
The parts are inexpensive, it's basic bike parts, it's
meant to be worked on quickly, easily, and by anybody
with very basic tools.
So, the V in this one, the win is gonna go to Concept 2,
because of it's ease and easy access to parts
for maintenance purposes.
It just got decidedly colder while I was filming that,
"thus the addition of the vest".
But we're on to part five, which is price,
and on this one there's really no contest.
The Tunturi was 10 dollars and eighty-two or
eighty-three cents, from a consignment shop nearby;
that was all to happy to get rid of it.
They could not have given it to me faster.
It was stuffed behind armoire, just waiting
for somebody to come take it.
They didn't want it, and so we got it.
That made for this great video.
Concept 2 on the other hand, 1000 bucks.
I mean it's a little bit under, but let's just
call it a thousand.
10 dollars verses a 1000 dollars.
Now, if I were to just assign that a win that would
go to Tunturi, because for 10 bucks how can you
go wrong, when it comes to fitness?
But I believe the discussion is a bit more
involved than that.
So at the end of the day, what we're really summarizing
is what's the value to you as the user?
And that can come with a host of different discussions.
For example, do you just need to get a workout in,
and you don't care about tracking, or looks, or any
of that information; you just wanna move.
Well, in that case a 10 dollar value is gonna
be the clear winner here.
Because it's just going to get you moving, and
that will last you until your ready to upgrade
and setup into a 1000 dollar machine.
On the other hand, if for you the tracking
is extremely important.
You want to learn everything that comes with the
mechanics, and moving on the Concept 2 machine,
and you want something that looks really nice.
Then the 1000 dollar value is gonna be your
your important decision, because to you that's worth it.
And we know that once you have possession of something
it becomes immediately more valuable to you.
I now value this Tunturi, more than I did when I saw
it on Offer Up for 10 bucks.
It was just a machine , with a picture on it.
Now, that it's sitting here in my driveway, I can smell
the oil while I'm using it.
Well, it doesn't really come along with great mechanics.
Its still gets me moving, and it's got a lot of resistance,
so actually kinda like, weight lifting on a machine.
It's like setting it up to ten and then taking
it up to eleven; that's the Tunturi.
"Turn that up to eleven".
Anyways, in summary, if we were to count it all, and
bring it into our column here; it's a dead tie.
The winner on price came down to the Tunturi;
10 bucks you can't beat that.
However, value is what at the end of the day
creates this decision that is yours ultimately to make.
And for that I can't answer that question, but I can tell
you that this is, quite a fun experiment between a
10 machine and a 1000 dollar machine.
So, guys if you really enjoyed this
video, drop a comment below.
I really wanna know if you've had an opportunity
to ever row on something like a Tunturi before,
or what machine you are using at home.
And frankly I just love to see the variety of
machines that people use, from RPS 3 all the way down
to a 40 year old Tunturi.
Who knows, but I would love to hear about it;
drop your comments in the box below.
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And always guys, thank you so much for tuning in.
We will see you on the other side.
(urban music)
(man laughing)
- [Man] "You're coming home with me".
- [Commemorator] Get your coat, you've pulled.
(clapping)
(laughing)