Okay Buckeroos and Buckerettes, we’re stepping up to the wacky world of PCing here at the vo2ranch. The plan is to build up a trainer specific bike that the wife and I can adjust with QR’s and such so that the both of us can PC for the price of one. While I realize that this is far from optimal and will not allow for road riding, can we expect to receive a benefit from this setup? Or are we just whistling in the wind?
yes, that kind of use will make both of you better, especially your running. Your bike improvement will be there but it will be less than if you used them exclusively in your biking.
Hope that helps. Have “fun”
Frank
Great! Since we will not be using them exclusively, what would be the most efficacious use of them in terms of particular workouts…besides the obvious just-learn-to-ride-them-more-than-2-minutes-consecutively-stage?
Hope that helps. Have “fun”
HA, funny!
The obvious answer is to use them as much as possible!
As far as a specific answer, I like to do this workout: Slowly warm up until you reach your highest sustainable rpm (by now, you should have a good idea of what that rpm is…don’t worry if it is only 50 or some other embarrassingly low number). Then ride at an rpm 10 higher until you “lose it”, return to the original sustainable rpm until you recover. Then ride at 20 rpm higher than this sustainable rpm until you “lose it”, return to the sustainable rpm until you recover. Rinse, repeat. Do this for however long your workout is scheduled to be.
As you progress, your highest sustainable rpm will get higher and higher, so this workout takes that into consideration. Don’t get discouraged, experiment with whatever other idea comes to mind. Ride 'em, ride 'em, and ride 'em…you won’t regret it (except maybe for the pain DURING the training rides)!
Oh, and keep us posted on your progress.
In the beginning the best work out is to use them as much as possible. If you do not use them essentially exclusively, you will probably never get the the point that they are “easy enough” that specific work outs will be more beneficial than just time on the cranks.
vo2max,
i started pc’ing on oct 1st '03. it was a nasty day out, so i used them on the trainer. i managed to get 10 minutes in b4 succumbing to serious PAIN. it has been a love hate excursion from that point. i have used the pc’s exclusively (with the exception of a few mt. bike, single speed and tri bike rides thrown in). i try to get outside as much as possible…which is somewhat difficult this time of year in philly. my first trip outside i was able to do 3X15 minute blocks…that’s it, my legs were completely DONE after that. I am now up to 5 hrs outside and 3.5 hrs indoors (b4 switching to my tri bike…which is like getting on a Lazy Boy after the pc’s for 3.5 hrs). mind you it still takes an extreme amount of mental fortitude after the 2.5 hr mark and I still feel serious burn in my legs…that’s the HATE, but, that is also the LOVE. i love the feeling of getting such a great workout form the pc’s. i cannot tell at this point if my biking times have improved, all i know is that i feel great when i ride my tri bike…(hopefully all of this pain will equate to better bike times, guess we’ll see at IMNZ march 6th.)
now the LOVE…my run times are SUBSTANTAILLY better. It is truely AMAZING. I am down 35-40 seconds per mile. at my heart rate is lower at this speed as well. It is truely astonishing.
even after a hard 3.5 hrs on the pc’s and 2 hrs on the tri bike (on the trainer) i am running so much more COMFORTABLE, at a nice ez heart rate (140-145) and still maintaining a 6:50-7:05 min. miles…for 6 miles and this after a hard session of 5+ hrs. on the trainer. this pace would have been a 7:45+ last year and no where near being as comfortable as i am at a 7 min. pace. feeling confortable at that pace…THAT’S HUGE. It is even hard to stop at 6 or 7 miles…I know I can keep this pace up for a lot longer and I even have 10 heartbeats to spare b4 going anaerobic…(but of course I don’t continue the run…i am still 2.5 months out of IMNZ) well, this has taken way too long to type this and i am now late for a swim session…gotta go. great luck to you and your wife v02max…hang in there, b4 you know it you will be riding 3 hrs on them.
i am looking forward to seeing how my bike times are effected by the pc’s…
btw…i do not know anyone at Power Cranks, this is a completely unbiased report on pc’s.
Question, during the off season I’m building a base of slow miles and one 40 mile ride with the roadies. When begining to use PC’s, how do you keep the base miles up if you can olny ride for 15-30 minutes? Do you switch to your other bike and continue the ride???
Initially, you can ride multiple times per day to get more time in and to speed the adaptation, but you should be up to 40 miles pretty quickly- like in 2-3 weeks. My first ride on PC’s on the trainer was literally 2 minute intervals with 30 second rest stops for about 15 minutes or so, and I was toast. Within a week I was doing 20 minute intervals with 30 second rest stops. Within two weeks I was able to ride for 45 minutes to an hour on the trainer non-stop. I then took the bike outdoors, and this equated to being able to do about 2-2.5 hours outdoors (with stoplights and such). Within another 2 weeks I was doing 50-60 mile rides on the PC’s. Note: I was only riding them 3-4 times per week, but I was using them exclusively (since I only had one bike at the time and they’re sort of a pain to switch on and off the bike). Your mileage may vary, but I certainly don’t think I’m any sort of special athlete, so I would think that my adpatation period would be pretty average.
Don’t worry about your “base miles” if it means you have to pedal in the old fashion to keep your mileage up. Work on your PC “base miles” and soon you will be back up to where you think you should be but pedaling correctly and using all your muscles.
Frank
The issue we ran into has nothign to do with the PCs themselves. It’s that my wife is not herself a triathlete. Granted if I pop a spinerval tape in she will set her trainer up right next to mine and we’ll sweat away.
But she won’t on her own, set up the trainer and workout. So in reality she doesn’t use the pcs much.
If your wife is motivated enough to do them on her own then you’ll probably be good.
Sort of strange that we don’t see the anti-PC comments like we used to, isn’t it? I remember back in the days when…but, I digress.
The one published study on short-term PC’ing does not make the results read like PC’s are the Gospel Truth (with apologies to non-Gospel believing people), but, I guess all the anecdotal evidence is piling up that PC’s actually, somehow, benefit the runner/rider.
For you people that are just beginning on them, I know how disappointing the decrease in mileage can seem to be. DON’T WORRY about it. Just do whatever you can, mileage-wise, and “it” will happen, whatever “it” is. If you have enough intestinal fortitude (or stupidity, I’m not sure which it is…!), go on an out and back ride that forces you to ride somewhat further than you think you can go on them. ttn’s epic 100 miler is a good example of the guts, or lack of sense, that I’m referring to.
Your mileage will be back to normal very quickly. And, with more time, your mileage will be back to normal, but at a quicker elapsed time, because you WILL get faster. Running results seem to come much faster than riding results. Running after riding is a REAL kick! That combination of decreased split times in both events is the real measure of PC’s effectiveness.
indeed yaqui. the more i think about it the more i think the best way to deal with the dread " my miles will suffer if i get PC’s " issue is to take the bull by the horns and go do that epic out and back. no cell phone, either! 
consider - at some point you will absolutely die, no doubt. your HF’s will no longer be able to lift your previously gravytraining recovery leg whatsoever. at this point you will have to develope alternative coping strategies, or just lay down there on the roadside and take a nap. i used a variety of things on the hundie-miler, including a two/one leg pedalling style - one legging it - and the ever popular “delayed” style where you let the recovery leg lag for 4 hrs of the circle whilst driving the other leg over 8 hrs. so doing you can limp home. if you have a HRM you will see that you were on the meter the whole time.
now, the best part; most guys consider a one legged drill ride to be pretty darn hard. certainly a 40 mile one-legged drill ride after 60 miles to be an insane idea. however, with PC’s such a ride is not hard, but actually CHEATINGLY EASY !! so presto, a new paradigm of idiocy is born for the rider. how can this be a Bad Thing, i ask you?
anyway, so equpped the rider will be fine with the base mile issue. even cheating and one legging it home still counts and it is actually harder than the regular style of riding.
mind you now - at no time would this suggestion be apprapo for your spousal unit. making her ride PC’s is already W-A-Y over the top on the “stupid ideas to suggest to the wife” meter !! my wife would used them to bludgeon me to death long ago if she knew how to get them off her bike . . . . . . . .
Hey, Chameleon, did you happen to see the question I asked a few days ago? I was reading something about bicycle ergometry training and it’s effect on the “slow component” of the pulmonary system (in the CHEST Journal, I think). I’d never heard of the slow component of the pulmonary system before this article. Would you happen to know to what they were referring? Thanks.
Sounds like jargon to me. I have never heard of the term and, at one time, I was pretty up on this stuff. It could possibly be referring to the difference in reaction time (or time to see changes) between non-soluble gasses like oxygen (fast) and solluble gasses, like carbon dioxide (slow).
“slow component = anything on a triathlete’s bike.”
Does that include Lance when he is doing triathlons?
HA! Good one!
I’m going to have to find that article to read the whole thing and figure out what the term was referring to. If it’s interesting or halfway germaine to anything triathlon related, I’ll post it. It may be a term related to pulmonary function tests or something along that line, in which case it would have very limited interest to the triathlon population.
Alrighty then…Lets leap forward in time. The wife and I decide that we have to have our own PC’s, there’s not enough time in the day to split them up now.
Happy, happy, happy, we both have our own PC’s and can now do outdoor rides on them. Matter of fact we get dang good with them and ride nothing but PC’s 24/7. …Well, the question that now comes to mind is, what do we do with the tandem? If I were to slap triple chainring spiders on the cranks so as to use the innermost ring as the timing chain and the middle and outer rings as themselves. What the hell have I just created? Is it animal or vegetable, man or beast? What will happen? Will the riders be able to sync up and ride PC style only in twicer fashion? Or will they enter a neural moshpit from whence there is no escape?
Thoughts?
vo2. first you put the wife on PC’s, and now this. what manner of reckless risk taker are you ?! putting PC’s on a tandem will cause the Fabric of Time and Space to come torn assunder in and around that crazed machine, obviously. the effect would similar to when superman flew around the world really fast backwards, if you recall. Likely you will go back in time, meet your younger self, and try to give him some sage advice - all with the usual dire consequences. go not down this Unnatural Path.
I think t-t-n was trying to say: You’re Crazy!
Actually, you wouldn’t want to sync with each other, you would want to be out of phase so that you’re tandem would be powered by a 4 cylinder piston engine firing in sequence. Your right leg then her left leg, your left leg then her right leg, etc.
It’s intriguing to think of riding a tandem this way, but, in real life, I wouldn’t. I think the tandem requires a bit of emergency handling skill that I’d feel more comfortable doing with regular cranks…you can’t unweight your self from the seat easily if there were a big obstacle you had to run over…or to jump a hole, or hop onto a curb…these are all hard to do on regular cranks, about impossible on PC cranks on a tandem.
Good luck!
Time to help a newbie, please. What is “PC’ing”? Help me, please!