Four days ago, my dad was nice enough to take me to the Top Fitness store in Cupertino. We were hunting for a elliptical replacement and hoped to score a Black Friday deal.
The store manager, Reece, guided us around. Most of the cardio machines on sale were way out of our budget (think $4000 to $6000). Our choices soon got narrowed down to a WaterRower, an Assault AirBike, or a used Precor elliptical. All were around the range of $1100. There was a new Precor treadmill available in that price range, but my dad quickly dismissed that idea, saying that treadmills require too much maintenance.
Eventually, we settled on the WaterRower. The used Precor had no warranty and I was afraid of it breaking early again. I liked the AirBike, but my dad thought it was too boring.
Right before checkout, Reece convinced us to upgrade our purchase. Instead of the WaterRower, we went for the $1699 Octane Ro. He claimed it was the best rowing machine available and should last 10+ years. The product was out of stock and would take until mid-December to be delivered, but we were happy with our purchase.
That is, until we got home. I skimmed Amazon and was horrified to find the Octane selling for $1217. I thought about asking Reece for price matching, but ended up doing more research first.
Before long, I found that the go-to standard for rowing machines is the Concept2. The Octane Ro had decent reviews, but was rather obscure. (At the time of writing, Concept2 had 11,754 reviews on Amazon while the Octane Ro had 48.) The price of Concept2 was also cheaper (aka $990 + $55 shipping), so it was not hard to make a decision.
Saturday morning, we called Top Fitness and cancelled our order and bought a Concept2 direct from the manufacturer. Shipment is estimated for early December and we’re all excited to try out our new toy; hopefully it will help with my dad’s bad back and my bad shoulders.
