Well, I took the plunge and got some powercranks. Thanks to Frank Day and Coach Steve Bentley for encouraging me to do so. I managed to do 40 min on the rollers, going out of synch several times, but staying upright and not crashing. The limiting factor was not my hip flexors, but staying in synch. On a side note, I have just come off 2700K of XC skiing the winter so my HF are in pretty good shape compared to most. Nevertheless, they were the limiting factor in keeping in synch (unable to lift the recovery pedal quickly enough). This morning, I did another 40 min ride with a 10K run in the middle (30 min rollers - 10K treadmill run - 10 min). I was able to stay in synch for longer, and today the HF muscles were clearly a bit fatigued, but not sore. The 10K run in the middle felt fine. I was not cripple, but no faster than off a normal roller ride (of course, I need some periodization to draw any benefits).
Some questions/statements for experienced users:
You guys are gods. I can’t imagine riding for 180K in the aero position on these even at a “slow” training pace
How long does it take to get to comfortably riding 1-2 hours without going out of synch and generally feel like you are riding a conventional set of cranks
I found the Q factor somewhat wide and adjusted my cleats in 2 mm each to bring them back to my pre-PC Q factor. This also seemed to help. Any others with similar input and do you readjust cleats once you go back to regular cranks for racing
Does your whole leg feel tired after a PC ride or just your HF muscles. I found my whole leg was heavy, but the HF felt no worse than after a long XC ski day
What cadence do you guys ride at. Normally, I am a 100-115 RPM person and I was ~90 rpm with PCs (before I go out of synch that is). I really don’t want to ride much slower RPM than that.
Do must ride them in a roadie config or a tri config. I have a kestrel 200 SCi set up at a virtual seatpost of ~75.5 degrees. Is is easier riding them at first in the roadie position (I suspect so) at 73 degrees ?
I’m certainly not, and I don’t know how to do that yet, either!
Took me almost 2 months.
Didn’t mess with the Q factor…I like 'em a little wider than normal anyway.
The outside of my quads were more tired at first, but my hip flexors and anterior tibialis were the most tired by far.
I was a 108 rpm’er. Now, I am fine at 75-95. I feared my knees would start hurting…they always have in the past when I did low rpm work, but, they don’t hurt at all on PCs at this rpm. Interestingly, when I went back to regular cranks the first 3 short times, my knees did hurt a little. Today, I did 30 miles on regular cranks (that’s half of the total mileage I’ve done this year on regular cranks) and I had no knee discomfort…even though I kept the rpms 75-95 just as I’ve been practicing on PCs.
Road position is easiest at first. As Francois told me, don’t worry about position for a while, just get the mileage in.
Good luck! You are probably ahead of the curve over most people with your XC skiing background, just think how hard it was for us “others” at first!
In view of the fact that your initial goal is to have a good Boston Marathon AND your initial endurance is quite good, I would recommend that you try to use the PC’s at a running cadence. After Boston, I would then ignore cadence and look for the most powerful cadence per Yaqui’s recommendation.
paul, sit straight up with your hands off of the handlebars, just like you are running. I know I default to this position when I am tiring but want to keep pedaling (yes, even on the road!)…it opens up your hip angle so your flexors have an easier go of it, and it more closely mimics your running stride. Boston is in 3 weeks? I had measurable running benefits in one week (but, I’m not nearly as accomplished a runner as you must be!). Maybe this is enough time to actually help you in your marathon time.
Actually it was mostly skate skiing (~2400 out of 2700). One would think that skate skiing does not use the HF’s that much, but every winter, i can visually see an increase in the size of those muscles !
On the note above, Clara Hughes won a bronze medal at the Atlanta Games in the Womens individual TT and then won silver at Nagano in either the 3000 or 5000m speedskate.