We’ve had a busy start of the year polishing our product, and there is a big chance that we will be able to launch a Beta version of our Rowing Performance App next week! That’s what we’ve been working toward for one year. Indeed, our startup turned 1 year old yesterday! Btw, regarding our App we've had some questions from rowers regarding what our App is, what it does, and if why and how it helps rowers. We tried to answer those questions with our new What-How-Why page, have a look!
The lakes and sea in Finland are frozen since December and since we cannot row on water without travelling far South we’ve turned our gaze indoors and have realized that our Rowing Performance system can help people row better also on the indoor rowing machine. We worked on the algorithms with the Physicists in our team and in no time we made a product that can measure and provide feedback on rowing rhythm indoors. We demonstrated an early concept of this already at the British Rowing Indoor Championship in Dec last year. Now we’ve embedded the code in our Rowing Performance App and anyone can try it out as soon as the App is in store and we start sales of our sensors, and that might be next week, at least that is what we're aiming for.
Our Indoor Rowing system consists of a phone that is attached to the Concept2 handle and a sensor that is taped to the seat like shown in the picture below. We were demonstrating our indoor system to the coach at the Canottieri Gavirate Rowing Club in Italy earlier this year:
This year we’ve also done live demos of our Rowing Performance system at the Finnish and the Danish Indoor Rowing championships. It was really great to meet and talk with experienced rowers about our new product and to get new ideas to bake into our product. We also invited people to take part in the Quiske Challenge: meeting specific metrics on our App. We wanted people to think about their rowing rhythm, and to tickle them into trying different types of rowing rhythms. We believe that in order for a boat to move faster everyone in the crew need to row with the same rhythm, and with our system rowers within the crew can synchronize their rhythm already during winter and before taking a boat on water.
Our App and sensor measure the speed of the Concept2 handle and seat and give real time feedback as graphs and through numerical metrics. These help you work on sharper leg work, and on correct pacing during recovery. We hope our App can make rowing feel more enjoyable, and indeed invite you to try visualizing that you’re dancing with the Ergo.
Crossfit Regatta Premier: 4th of March in Tuusula, Finland
Our next Indoor Rowing event is the Crossfit Regatta at the Crossfit Tuusula gym, very close to Helsinki, in Finland. The Crossfit Regatta is the first of a kind in Finland: It is an indoor rowing race on slides, for teams, and it’s a race not only for rowers but for the Crossfit community as well.
Quiske is arranging a mixed team race on slides. Stay tuned for more info but mark the date 4th of March, Tuusula, into your calendar and book your travels! We hope to see many rowers and Crossfit people at the Crossfit Regatta, especially we’d like to make new friends with participants who venture here from outside the capital region or from abroad ;-)
For sure we will also run our traditional Quiske Challenge and anyone who shows up will be invited to try it: those who meet the metrics get a Quiske snood.
In addition to the first ever Crossfit Regatta the spring of course holds a number of exciting Indoor Rowing races. This weekend we will be keeping our eyes on the Crash B race in Boston where Joel Naukkarinen is seeking to set another indoor rowing record...
Til next time,
Kristina
PS. Last but not least: It is official, our team has moved into an office of our own, and with that we welcome a new team member: Mr Ergo a.k.a as the Concept 2 Indoor Rowing machine moved together with us into our new office. He is not a silent machine, so a space of our own was needed for him to be welcome. We did enjoy the 10 months we spent at the Msft Flux startup accelerator in central Helsinki and am sure we will be back many times for meetings and good coffee :-)
We will arrange a housewarming party at our own Office as soon as our Rowing Performance Beta App has landed in the Play store…stay tuned or if you want to make sure you are invited then ping us at contact@quiske.fi!