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Riding in aero position with PowerCranks
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I'm having a really hard time doing this for extended periods of time, e.g., > 1 hour on the trainer or > 30 minutes on the road. I imagine that it's because the angles of being low and in the aero bars make it tougher for the hip flexors to lift the pedals up. Have others of you encountered this problem? At what point does it typically become as easy to ride aero as sitting up with PCs? Any tips?

As background, I've been using PCs a little less than 3 months. My long rides have increased to 80 miles, although my hip flexors always wear out before I reach full distance. I spend most of the time in my 3x week, 1 hour trainer rides in the aero position, but on the long rides, I spend most of my time sitting up, either because I'm riding with others or because I just tire out riding aero. I'm a bit worried that, by not riding long in the aero position now, I'll not be ready to do so come my ironman in about 3 months. Thanks for any insights.
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Re: Riding in aero position with PowerCranks [aardvark] [ In reply to ]
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As long as the hip angle is tighter in the aero position, it will always be a little tougher in the aero position. You will be able to do it for long periods only when you either improve your flexibility or change the hip angle.
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Re: Riding in aero position with PowerCranks [aardvark] [ In reply to ]
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I never did master this for any length of time.

Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
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Re: Riding in aero position with PowerCranks [aardvark] [ In reply to ]
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It just takes time. 3 months is not enough time. I would put you above average though to be able to do it this long at this point in your training. If you raise your stem a bit you will be able to do it longer then when you can do it as long as you need to, then you can start lowering it.

Frank

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks
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Re: Riding in aero position with PowerCranks [Tom Demerly] [ In reply to ]
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It seems like if you can't use powercranks effecively in the aero position, and all your priority races are done in the aero position, then they aren't going to help you very much. Any validity to this thought?.

I think they can be very effective in a power/road position, and plan on getting a set eventially (based mostly on josh horowtz's experiences as found on pezcyclingnews.com)
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Re: Riding in aero position with PowerCranks [Ben in FL] [ In reply to ]
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My buddy rides his P3 in the aero position with PC with no problems. Heck, I watched him out sprint a pit bull this weekend with his PCs.


TheBikeRacer.com
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Re: Riding in aero position with PowerCranks [Ben in FL] [ In reply to ]
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Interesting thought Ben. I started using PC's this year and feel like my pedal stroke has improved considerably in my roadie position, but I was horrified to see I lost 25 Watts at 2 mMol lactate (Ironman pace) in the aero position compared to a road position. This was the first time I've been tested in the aero position and I was also on my new bike in a very aggressive aero position. As you can imagine, I've been tweaking my position ever since then...breaking a cardinal rule, since I race IMNZ in 10 days. My pedal stroke analysis with the SRM was also horrid in the aero position. My take home message was that I need to spend more time training in the aero position (right now I train about 75% of the time on a road bike) and I need to get some aerobars on my PC bike for some hip flexor torture sessions.

TriDi
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