A month or so ago, I called the people at PowerCranks to tell them how much I liked their product. They invited me to write a blog about using PowerCranks, and so here I am.
I'll start with the punchline and go from there. Last year I rode in a 200K brevet here in San Diego. It's always held on the same weekend, it uses the same route with the same checkpoints, same start time, and so on. Lasst year I was riding on standard fixed cranks and finished the ride in 9:44. This year, after training on PowerCranks since mid August, I finished the ride in 8:00. That's nearly 3 mph faster over 200K.
I have a 300K, a 400K, and a 600K sprinkled throughout the next couple months. And I plan to ride PowerCranks in all of those rides.
I'll be sure to let you know how things go.
A few years ago I took up cycling to get back in shape. What started out as 5-10 mile rides became 50-75 mile rides. These days, I train for double centuries and brevets. Because I'm 6'9" and 225, I don't expect to finish ahead of riders who are younger stronger, and lighter, but I'm always trying to find ways to shave time of my rides.