Posted by Frank Day (63.201.228.13) on January 19, 2004 at 17:01:40:
In Reply to: Indy cranks and heart rate... posted by danZ on January 19, 2004 at 16:24:07:
that the main impediment to training on PC's is a metabolic one. Most people have developed the neuromuscular coordination to be able to ride these things without any conscious effort in 2 weeks, 4 weeks max.
After that, it seems to me that the main impediment is muscular endurance. It seems like it takes a full season to get to where you can ride pretty hard for 3-5 hours without those muscles crashing. I was talking to a pro-triathlete today who put in over 9000 miles on his PC's since getting them last December. He now feels like he will be able to train on them like he used to train this season and expects to have a very good year. (I also think he intends to do some IM racing on them).
However, that all being said, I think the main impediment to seeing improved race results is neuromuscular coordination and NM memory. This is because most people go back to regular cranks for races and even though they can ride the PC's in training without difficulty or any seemingly conscious thought, this new motion is not so ingrained that they will continue to do it even when tired if using cranks that will let them get lazy.
Frank