After 2 years on PCs, my riding is stronger than ever , and a ton better than before I started using PCs. I have not done much racing this spring because I am concentrating on getting ready for Lake Placid, but all my indicators tell me that the bike is going great. I am doing a 40k TT this week and will be able to tell you more after that.

I am still a firm beleiver in them and will continue training with them.

I've been using them for the last two months, and I feel like I've made great progress in adapting to them. I've worked my way up to long rides of ~3.5 hours (albeit with a lot of suffering in the last hour or so). However, with less than two months to go until Vineman, I didn't feel like I could ramp my long ride distance on the PC's as fast as I would like, so they came off on Friday. If I had two bikes I'd probably keep doing the shorter rides on PC's and the long rides on regular cranks, but I don't have that luxury right now, and I don't have the time to be switching cranks all the time. I plan to go back to the PC's exclusively after Vineman, though.

jimi. here is a PC story you do not hear everyday - my tri season has been off to a nonexistant start, but i have been having fun racing a singlespeed mt bike. in the totally anecdotal and unofficial test protocol of " comparing yerself to guys who used to kick yer a$$" , things have been going OK. dudes that last year were wailing on me by 6 min i am now beating by 4, in a 75 min or so race. this on about half the training time or so. i even beat the entire 40+ multigeared field at one race on the one speed, something i am not i could have done on my regular mt bike pre PC - well, maybe on a good day. :) . a fella can feel the improved ability to get the recovery leg going forward while moosing uphill slowly and painfully, and also the improved ability to actively spin out in forward positive pressure mode on the flats in the way-too-low ss gear. a virtual secret weapon, it is. gobs of fun, too ( the PC's still), in that sick sorta way. have fun.

I've only been using mine sporadically since December primarily out of laziness than anything else. I still really like the cranks and have noticed two things this season. The first is that when I run long my hips are last part of my legs to fatigue and they used to be the first. Second is that I'm getting hardware in races this year. I can't definitively attribute this to PCs but I thought it was another anecdote worth mentioning. I do wish they were less expensive, but what are you gonna do? All I can say is that I have no plans to get rid of mine.

One word of advise that I learned the hard way. Do not attempt to put PCs onto your fixed gear bike if you don't have actual brakes on it as well.

OK, so I was kidding about the fixie thing...

I quit posting PC stuff for a couple of reasons.

First, it seems to be like trying to discuss politics or religion. I really don't want to be in the middle of an arguement that is pointless. You get the "holier than thou" pseudo-academics that pooh-pooh the whole idea, but have never trained on PCs or studied people that have trained on them; other people get hung up on some terminology or statement on the PC website, but don't take into consideration big qualifying statements such as "...for the AVERAGE rider...."; the simply marginally curious people have nothing to contribute (and it isn't their fault, at least they know enough to know they don't know enough about them!); and then, there are the people that have actually trained on them, find they work, and are trying to share their experiences. Oh, and one VERY creative summarizer that did a great job of poking fun at all of us...I forget who it was, but it was a great job! None of this really matters, what matters is if they help YOU or not.

Secondly, my race times, as well as my placings in my Age Group, have improved dramatically, and I don't want to appear to be tooting my own horn about my improvement. At the beginning of the year, after being on PCs for only a few weeks, I made several predictions about my performance for this season...admittedly very high expectations for a middle aged athlete. I seriously doubt there were more that 3-4 people on this site that believed I could accomplish those predicted goals...but those that believed were those that have actually trained on PCs. I've already accomplished all of those original high goals this year, and it's only June. I'm still improving, and will obviously exceed my original predictions, barring injury.

Thirdly, why would I want anyone else in my Age Group to know about my semi-secret training weapon? I plan to enjoy this advantage as long as I can before everyone else starts using them.

Lastly, if a person cannot see the value in the 60 day trial guarantee (or your money back), anything I say is going to be worthless in comparison to the guarantee.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)