Everyone races everyone.
A free, handicapped erg league that runs all year in four seasons. It opens with the twelve-round Winter Season for clubs and independent athletes. Your 2K is scored against a sixty-year-old lightweight’s 2K and a nineteen-year-old heavyweight’s, and all three are on the same sheet.
Free to enter and open the whole way through. Rules & methodology · Captains’ kit
Four seasons. No off-season.
The Flowbase League doesn’t stop in February. Each season is built around what crews are training for, and rankings stay live all year.
- Nov–FebWinter Season First up
Twelve handicapped rounds of 2K, 5K and 6K, with six titles. Opens Nov 2.
- Feb–AprSpring Season
500m, 1000m, 2000m and a 4 × 500m relay, to support what crews do on the water.
- May–AugSummer Season
5000m, 30r20, weekly meters and a BikeErg 20km. Low-commitment, mostly volume.
- Sep–OctFall Season
6000m, 10000m, 30 minutes and the Hour of Power, for head race season.
Rankings and Speed Order stay live between seasons. Dates for each later season are announced before it starts.
One season, and a league that never closes.
Round 1 is a 5K, so you’re seeded on a piece you’re already fit for after head racing. The first 2K comes in Round 6, once there’s base under it. Divisions move after Rounds 3, 6 and 9. The Holiday Weeks are three weeks of every meter on every machine, and they can’t be dropped.
Each round runs Monday 00:00 to Sunday 23:59 in the local time where the piece is rowed.
Seeding round. You start on a piece you are already fit for, coming off head racing.
Seeds divisionsEverything logged counts
Rankings stay live
Speed Order™ keeps updating all year. A PB in July shows up the same day it would in January.
Monthly boards
Every month has its own standings and its own small title. Arrive in January and there’s a January to win.
Ratings carry over
Row through the off-season and you arrive in November already rated and seeded.
Every round, on the record.
Each round’s results and a short league recap are posted the Monday after the round closes.
Round 1 · 5000m
Results by division, club and boat, and the week’s recap, once the round closes.
Round 2 · 6000m
Results by division, club and boat, and the week’s recap, once the round closes.
Round 3 · 5000m
Results by division, club and boat, and the week’s recap, once the round closes.
Three titles reward showing up.
A season decided only on 2K speed is a season most people stop opening by December. Each title is held on its own. The overall Speed Order™ title needs eight rounds.
Speed Order
Best eight handicapped rounds. The overall title.
Fastest raw
Uncorrected time, open to all. The title the sport already understands.
Total meters
Everything logged, every machine, whole season.
Consistency
Rounds completed and weeks without a gap. Winnable by anyone who doesn’t miss.
Club title
Three size bands, so a twelve-person masters club isn’t measured against an eighty-athlete junior program.
Most improved
Largest handicapped gain from Round 1 to Round 12. Seeded slow is an advantage here.
Three numbers, always together.
Concept2 sorts times into age, weight and gender boxes. The league keeps those boxes and puts one number on top so the boxes can race each other. Your position, raw time and handicapped time are always shown side by side.
Try the handicap
Speed Order™ is one comparable number across age, weight and test distance. Raw results are always shown. How it works →
Full methodology → Illustrative factors. Every athlete sits in one of 48 cells (two categories, two weight classes, twelve age bands). Factors are recomputed after each round from that round’s field. The live league uses the Speed Order™ model.
Club score
The mean of a club’s eight best scores, plus a participation credit for everyone else who turned out. Nobody is ever a cost to enter.
Size bands
Clubs are ranked within Small (up to 25), Mid (26 to 60) and Large (61+), as well as overall.
Divisions
Your first ranked piece seeds you into one of four divisions. Two rounds provisional, then you move with everyone else.
Enter every lineup.
A junior program with fourteen lineups enters fourteen. Each boat is ranked against the same class at every other club, which is the comparison a coach can’t otherwise get until spring. A boat keeps its record through crew changes.
Boat classes
Junior, Masters, Collegiate and Open, with level (1V, 2V, Novice, Lightweight) and seats. An eight races an eight.
Teams
A group inside a club, an open group across clubs, or a creator’s program. Four members to challenge.
Junior boats · every club
Boat rankings open once clubs enter their lineups. Each boat is scored on the mean of its crew’s handicapped results and ranked against the same class everywhere.
Challenge anyone.
Athlete against athlete, boat against boat, team against team, club against club. Group fixtures pair rosters by rank, your first against their first, so only the pairs count and a twelve-person club can beat an eighty-person one.
Nov–Feb
Ladder fixtures are raced on the round's piece, so a challenge costs nobody an extra test.
Feb–Apr
500m, 1000m, 2000m and a 4 × 500m relay, to support what crews are doing on the water.
May–Aug
5000m, 30r20, weekly meters and a BikeErg 20km. Low-commitment and mostly volume.
Sep–Oct
6000m, 10000m, 30 minutes and the Hour of Power, for head race season.
No fixtures yet. Challenges are sent from the app — pick a rival club, boat or team and the pairing is done for you.
Three ladder fixtures per round each, counted across every team you score for. Anything beyond that is a friendly.
Getting your piece onto the sheet.
Monitor via ErgData
Rowed on the monitor and synced through ErgData to your connected logbook. Splits come with it.
Logbook entry
Typed into your Concept2 logbook by hand. Ranks, and is labelled so.
Monitor photo
The PM5 summary screen, numbers confirmed. Ranks, and anyone can flag it.
Typed in
No photo. Counts toward meters and consistency only.
Flowbase only reads your Concept2 results and profile. It never writes to your logbook. Heart rate is shown to you and your coach and is never published. Concept2 is not affiliated with the Flowbase League.
Money never touches the standings.
Fundraising is optional and off by default. A club that raises fifty thousand dollars and a club that raises nothing are scored identically. Flowbase keeps 5% of a donation to cover payment processing and the platform; the rest goes to the club.
The 24-Hour Erg
One machine, a pledge sheet, and a shift sheet anyone can sign.
Holiday Weeks
Supporters pledge against Round 7’s meters. Nobody rows an extra stroke.
Free, and open start to finish.
Enter in the app, or here. If your club is entering as a team, your captain’s link puts you straight onto their roster.
Direct invitations with a roster link and a one-page brief for the boathouse wall.
Program invites, so a creator’s athletes enter as a squad and score together.
Anyone with an erg, club or not, rower or not.
Join late and you have a shorter season. No asterisk, no adjustment: you’re scored on the rounds you rowed.
Enter in two minutes
Entry is free and takes a name, an email and a date of birth — the last so your age band is right. Athletes under 18 are asked for a parent or guardian’s email, and their entry goes live once it’s approved.
Training on your own? Choose Unattached and you’re pooled with other independents.