PowerCranks: How Good Are They?
Wednesday, January 07, 2004  12:08:41 PM PT

by Josh Horowitz

We’re always interested in ways to improve our riding, for reasons ranging from simply having more fun, to having more fun kicking the next guy’s butt… A growing number of top pros have been spotted using PowerCranks, including guys like Leipheimer, Bettini, Museeuw, and Hincapie. How good are these things? Here’s Week #1 of our own ongoing evaluation.

Our man-on-the-cranks is Josh Horowitz, a Cat. 1 pro living in southern California. His report starts on November 15/03 and takes place over 2 weeks. During his “aclimatization” to the PowerCranks, he also did a couple of rides on his regular cranks to maintain consistency of his winter training program, and on some of the days below, he finished up with some miles on the regular bike for the same reason.


PowerCranks Diary - Week One
One week ago my new PowerCranks arrived and I started what feels like a new phase in my training journey. They went on easily. Just a few turns of an Allen wrench and I was ready to go.

First though, a little background on where I am in my training. The timing is actually quite perfect. I’ve just taken about a month off the bike after completing a 10-day stage race in New Zealand. It was supposed to be two weeks off, but a motorist who thought he could fit his car up my rear end during his commute extended the break by about two weeks. The day before I did my first ride on the cranks, I did my monthly practice time trial on Mandeville Canyon in Santa Monica. Borrowing a friend’s Power Tap, I recorded a time of 19:15 over the 5-mile climb, which averages about a 5% grade. My average power output was 354 watts and average heart rate was 165. This is over 3 minutes slower than my peak in season time of 16:01. It will be interesting to see the results of my next time trial after using the PowerCranks for a month.



It’s a good idea to start out on your trainer to get the hang of pedalling the PowerCranks, lest you embarrass your self in public…


Day 1 – The First Turn of the Pedals
I’d heard that these things can be a bit tricky at first so I set up my new Paketa Magnesium bike (my Cannondale was ruined in the crash) on the wind trainer in the living room. I set a goal for myself of 15 minutes. Well 15 minutes was a pretty good estimation and I was pedaling away.

These things are hard. The first thing I noticed was that there was something wrong with the left crank. It felt like it was dragging on something. It took me another 30 seconds to realize that it was just the discrepancy between my left and right leg that was causing the strange sensation.

The motion itself is not impossible. For anyone with a halfway decent pedal stroke the actual mechanics should be easy to grasp. If you can do an individual leg-pedaling workout on your regular bike then you should be able to turn these over. The problem is, most people don’t do these drills for more than a few minutes. With PowerCranks, you are effectively doing one-legged pedaling drills for the entire course of your ride. By the end of my workout, both legs were burning and muscles that I never would have thought had anything to do with cycling were speaking to me. Specifically, my inner thighs and hip flexors. After only one ride, I am pretty convinced that these things are going to make me a better cyclist. If I can learn to ride these efficiently, it should really improve my pedal stroke and power.


Day 2 – In Your Dreams…
Last night I actually had dreams about the PowerCranks. It’s such a strange feeling riding these things that it really does get into your subconscious. Of course in my dream, I was pedaling smoothly, tirelessly. On my 25-minute trainer ride…not so much. Already sore from yesterday’s ride, I got back into the rhythm fairly quickly. However, my legs tired almost immediately and I was soon pedaling nice even squares. It’s amazing how quickly your pedal stroke goes when your legs get tired on these. There’s no cheating whatsoever.


Day 3 – Building New Muscles
My first ride on the road. I started off feeling pretty good. Contrary to the warning I got from other PowerCrank users, the muscle memory reaction is not the key to mastering these things. As a personal trainer in the gym, it always amazes me how quickly the body adapts to new movements. I often see a significant improvement in just a few sets. No, what makes this hard is that the muscles needed to operate the PowerCranks just don’t exist yet.

The first 20 minutes of the ride go fairly well, but just like yesterday, I suddenly get tired and my pedal stroke goes down hill quickly. I limp back home with a series of choppy 30-second bursts. Before today, I had been harboring some secret belief that I’d be up and running by the weekend and able to do my full schedule of rides by then. My aching legs and pathetically slow return home convince me otherwise.


Day 4 – If At First You Don’t Succeed…
Another road ride. I set out to do the same 40-minute course around Marina Del Rey that I did yesterday. However, after 20 minutes, my girlfriend called from Brentwood to tell me that she is also on a ride. I get ambitious and decided to ride over and meet her. On my way up SanVicente Ave I wondered to myself, ‘can you stand on these thing?’ I stood up, took one stroke, then two, and suddenly crashed down into the saddle. The first couple of strokes are easy, but if you don’t get that back leg all the way up and over the top of the stroke, it falls backwards causing you to sit down very hard.

I make it about an hour before fatigue takes over and I ride home, lurching forward a few pedals strokes at a time. Still, the more I ride, the more convinced I become that I’ve found a real secret advantage in these things. They are so exhausting that if and when I become smooth on these things, there is no question in my mind that I will have an astronomically stronger and more efficient pedal stroke. Not since I popped on my pair of American Classic Carbons have I really felt that I have an equipment advantage over my competition. I find myself actually hoping that nobody finds out about these. I know I told Richard over at Pez that I’d publish my journal on his site, but maybe I shouldn’t. Good thing nobody really reads these training diaries anyway....



A special hub mechanism forces you to pedal each side independantly... together!


Day 5 – Join The Group
I attempted my first group ride today. A club ride that goes up Mandeville Canyon where I did my time trial. I am finding that riding in a group is actually easier because I am not thinking so much about each pedal stroke. I made it up with the group without too much trouble, however the descent was a little tricky. Descending or cornering with the cranks is tough because you can’t just put your outside foot down to pick your inside foot up. You actually have to pull it up and hold it out of the way as you go through the corner. This leads me to an interesting thought. If you could use these for races, you could actually hold your inside foot up and pedal only with your outside foot while everyone else is coasting. Imagine the advantage. You could create a gap in every corner!

I’ve got some sprints on the schedule for tomorrow and on the way home, I practiced getting out of the saddle a couple times. I had thought I was going to have to switch cranks or use my spare bike for this workout, but after a couple of efforts, I actually managed to stay out of the saddle so I figured I would give it a shot.


Day 6 - I’m actually getting good at this!
I managed to do all six of my 30-second sprints using the PowerCranks. Once you find the rhythm it’s not so bad, but if you lose your concentration for a second (or think about it too hard for that matter), it’s very easy to lose it and crash down into the saddle. Although I wasn’t generating a super amount of power or a high heart rate doing this, I was amazed at how badly my legs burned after each one. It felt as if I had done about 50 squats and every single muscle, from the quads to the hamstrings to the calves felt like it was bathing in lactic acid. However, this just makes me even more confident in the quality of these workouts. Getting efficient to the point where you can do an all out sprint with these cranks could make the difference between first and second in a sprint on the road because in those few milliseconds where even the best riders are not applying power to the pedals, you will be gaining.


Day 7 – Success!
I’m toast. It’s been a hard week and after only a few minutes my legs are already exhausted and pedaling squares. I manage to get in 2 hours anyway, but on the way back, I do more coasting than pedaling. Tonight I’ll take them off and give myself a little break, let the leg muscles heal and strengthen, but I am certainly not giving up. I’m told in a month, this will all be second nature and I’m definitely willing to give this another three weeks. In fact, I’m looking forward to my next practice time trial so I can really start seeing the results of my labor.

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