DQ Indoor Rowers

Published 18:04 on 5 Jan 2026

Did you wake up on the 2026 side of Christmas wishing you'd indulged yourself a little less? Was your New Year's resolution based around shaking off weight and being fitter?

About 2 years ago, as a throw away comment I asked Dell Quay members if they fancied joining a WhatsApp Group based around exercising on a rowing machine, either at home or from their local gym. The idea was a none competitive group that encouraged everyone to do whatever they could manage and post the results to support regular exercise, increase fitness and to achieve personal goals like health, fitness and companionship.

The take-up was good and in year one and thus, we formed the DQ Indoor Rowers Group we soon found our feet and set ourselves a series of virtual targets to row collective distances to places like Oslo, Norway.

Roll on another year and we have 25 members on the group. Some drift away periodically and return with a prompt from yours truly (you can treat this article as a prompt if you're reading it now), some are religious about getting involved and the rest, somewhere between the two! All that said, we racked up 6 million metres in 2025 which, given the diversity of age and ability amongst us is phenominal. Our club racing members improved their performance on the water through the group and at least two members recorded elite standard indoor rowing times as layed out by the Concept 2 Rowing Standards website and one completed a 40+ Kilometre Marathon distance as a personal goal. Not a bad year all in all!

The success of the group has caught the eye of many of our rowing contemporaries around the harbour and several of those clubs are now emulating what we do. To that end, there is a Concept 2 indoor team rowing event scheduled for February 28th at the Coastal Rowing Academy Rowing Club at Northney which we hope to send a crew to compete in.

Indoor rowing is great! It does not depend on tide or weather, requires no crew and can be carried out at a pace that suits the rower, especially those who might be returning to exercise after a long time at any time of the day or night. You just need access to a machine. Most gyms have one if you don't have one at home.

If you think you might like to get involved with the DQ Indoor rowers, please contact me via lead.rowers You'll be made to feel very welcome!

Nigel Foster.