General Care & Maintenance Tips for your C2 Ergo

Below are a few maintenance tips we recommend you undertake on your C2 ergo to keep it in great condition.

After Each Use

Wipe the monorail with a cloth or non-abrasive scouring pad after each use. You can use soap and water or any glass cleaner. Do not use mineral acids, bleach, or coarse abrasives.

Lubricate the Chain every 50 Hours

Many rowers overlook the simple step of lubricating the chain. A dry chain will not run as smoothly or as quietly as it should, and will wear out more quickly.

Excessive wear is not limited to just the chain. A dry chain will also cause wear on the sprocket (a.k.a. cog or gear) that it runs on to make the flywheel spin when you row. You may also experience a rougher feel and louder sound while rowing, and chain links can become stiff and start skipping as they run over the sprocket teeth.

Solution: Lubricating the chain is simple. Put a teaspoon of lightweight machine oil (e.g 3-in-one oil) on a paper towel, and rub the paper towel along entire length of chain. Wipe off the excess. Repeat if needed. Do not clean the chain with any kind of cleaner or solvent, e.g. WD-40.

Light Resistance with Damper set on 10? Clean the Flywheel:

Another simple and routine maintenance procedure is to open up the flywheel enclosure and clean it out once for every 250 hours of use (or more frequently if used or stored in a very dusty location). While rowing, air enters the flywheel housing from the side, and escapes around the outer edge (circumference) of the flywheel enclosure. It’s normal for some of the dust that enters along with the air to get trapped in the air outlet screen. As the screen gets plugged up with dust, the drag on the flywheel is less than it should be, so that opening the damper all the way to the highest setting (10) has little or no effect.

Solution: Cleaning the flywheel house is easy for: Model D/E Model C

PERFORMANCE MONITOR:

Update the Firmware on your C2 Ergo monitor:

In order to keep your Concept2 ergo monitor up-to-date (and to avoid those pesky error codes), we highly recommend upgrading to the latest firmware.  Firmware is the internal preinstalled software that runs your Performance Monitor (PM). New and improved versions are offered regularly for the PM5, so be sure you are running the most current version. Concept2 offers free software – the Concept2 Utility – that makes it easy to update your PM firmware at any time. Visit the Concept2 website for step-by-step update instructions: PM3 | PM4 | PM5

Performance Monitor Turns on but Won’t Count

Many rowers misdiagnose this as a bad Performance Monitor. It is often a problem with the pickup cable.

Solution: The first step is to make sure the pickup cable is properly plugged into the monitor in the smaller of the two round jacks (sockets). Inspect the pickup cable for signs of damage (e.g. abrasions, cuts or hard kinks). For clubs, schools and other facilities that have more than one indoor rower of the same model, there are additional easy steps for diagnosing. Pick a machine with a working monitor, and swap monitors from one machine to the other. If the problem stays with the machine, then it’s a pickup cable issue. If the problem follows the monitor, than there may be an issue with the monitor.