Your erg. Your crew. Your season.

BLADES27

Connect your Concept2 and every stroke moves a boat on the river. Build a programme, race your friends, and chase the swing again.

You need a Concept2 PM5 with Bluetooth. Row now in Chrome or Edge on a laptop or Android phone. The iPhone app is coming soon.
See what’s inside
Concept2 Holiday Challenge · Nov 26 – Dec 24

Row the Holiday Challenge with your old boat

100k or 200k metres by Christmas Eve. Put them in on BLADES: get your crew back together from your own ergs, race at the weekends, keep a running count toward your goal, and share a card from the river after every piece.

How many metres a day? Work it out ›

Only metres in your Concept2 Logbook count for the challenge. BLADES isn’t affiliated with Concept2.

On the water

Every stroke moves the boat

Your PM5 talks to BLADES 27 over Bluetooth. Pull harder and the boat runs; rate up and the crew rates up with you.

An eight racing at evening, seen from the side, with the race leaderboard and the cox calling the settle
  • Six-lane racingFive other crews alongside you and a live leaderboard down the course.
  • A cox in your earThe start, the settle, the push and the sprint, called out loud if you want.
  • Five camerasChase, side, stern, aerial or the stroke seat. Or leave it on Auto and it cuts between them while you row.
  • Dawn, day or eveningMist on the water, glare off the river, the trees upside down in it.
  • Single to eightA 1x, 2x, 4x or 8+, in your colours, hull and blades.
  • Your numbers, alwaysSplit, rate, watts and what’s left, at a glance, the whole way down.
Four ways to play

Pick your game

Row a piece in two minutes, or run a programme with your friends for years. Same erg, same river.

No sign-up

Just row

Connect and go. No account, no plan, just you and a piece.

  • Free row: the river, the erg and nothing else.
  • The tests you remember your numbers for: 2k, 5k and 6k.
  • Interval sessions with rate caps: 4 × 1,000 m, 3 × 10′ at 22, 30′ at rate 20.
  • Race day: 2,000 m or 1,000 m against five other crews.
  • The Erg Lab: your force curve stroke by stroke, where the peak lands, and a coach who reads it.
The view from the stroke seat at dawn: mist on the water and trees reflected in the river
On your own

Just me

Run your own rowing programme in a league of computer teams, on the real calendar. You stroke the boat; your athletes fill the other seats.

  • A weekly plan across five training bands, UT2 to AN, with target splits from your own test.
  • Fall head races up to The League Head over 5,000 m; spring duals, Easterns, Nationals and the League Final.
  • Recruit freshmen with scholarships each summer, with a scout to see their real potential and a recruiter to land them.
  • Hire coaches who make your crew faster where it counts: endurance, threshold, speed, technique.
  • Seat racing on the erg, A boat vs B boat, and weekend scrimmages.
  • One season, or year after year. Friends can join any time and take over a team.
A career home screen: this week’s plan, crew ratings, the poll and the inbox
Against friends

Rival programmes

Fantasy football for rowing. Each friend runs a programme in the same league, alongside computer teams, and you race each other’s crews.

  • Trade athletes until the deadline, and fight each other (and the computer schools) for recruits.
  • Poach the best coaches before your friends do.
  • A full league from day one: every friend who joins takes over a computer team, squad and points.
  • Everything from Just me: the plan, the races, recruiting, staff, seat racing.
LEAGUE TABLE1You2Sam’s3Alex’s4Jordan’s
With friends

One crew together

Everyone in the same boat. You each row on your own erg, wherever you are, with your own seat, and you coach one programme together against a full league.

  • Invite your friends with a code: up to four in a quad, eight in an eight.
  • Your own sessions build your own ratings; the squad trains off the whole crew.
  • Race weekends on the real calendar: everyone races, and a seat nobody rows gets a sub.
  • Everything from Just me: recruiting, staff, seat racing, a rival and the board, decided together.
  • Runs, rides and lifts count too, with WHOOP.
An eight seen from behind, rowing down a tree-lined river on a summer day
Training that counts

Train like a real squad

Your plan is written in the five bands real crews train in, paced off your own 2k. It all counts by the minutes you spend in each one, whether you follow the plan or row your own.

UT2Zone 2 steady
UT1Hard steady
ATThreshold
TRRace-pace work
ANFaster than race pace
  • A training logEvery week, every session, and what it did for your ratings.
  • Run it from your phonePlans, races, recruiting and the inbox are quick to check on the bus. Save the river for the erg.
  • On the real calendarWeek 1 starts on a Monday you choose. Race weekends land on real weekends.
Plays well with

Your kit, connected

  • Concept2 PM5Connects over Bluetooth. Every stroke from your monitor drives the boat.
  • Concept2 LogbookFinished pieces post to your Logbook on their own.
  • WHOOPRan, rode or lifted? It counts as cross-training, the way it would on a real team.
Founding members

Get in the first boat

BLADES is free while it’s in beta. Join the founding members and you’ll hear first about what’s next, and get a founding-member price when BLADES goes paid. No card, nothing to pay.

What you need

Get on the water

  1. A Concept2 RowErg with a PM5 monitor.
  2. Chrome or Edge on a laptop or Android (the iPhone app is coming soon), for the Bluetooth connection. Safari can’t talk to a PM5.
  3. A free account for a career, so it follows you from the erg to your phone. Just row and the Erg Lab work without one.

BLADES 27 isn’t affiliated with Concept2 or WHOOP.