Chris Helwig
10-21-2006, 03:43 PM
Today was the maiden voyage on the PowerCranks. As I prepared I plotted out my game plan. I really don't like indoor riding, so I decided to venture out South of the City. I knew Sibo lasted about 20 minutes his first ride, so my goal was to do the crit warmup loop which is about 35 minutes.
I walked to the end of my driveway and clipped in my right foot. Challenge number 1, how the hell do I get started?!?!? After being laughed at my a couple young White Oaks Crew members I finally mastered the start. I quickly realized being in the small ring was not where I should be. After a botched shift I was up in the big ring and going....sort of. I could go for about 20 seconds and then both crank arms would drop down. Luckily there was no traffic at the stop sign so I didn't have to try that ****ed start again. By the time I hit Exeter Road I quickly realized the 35 minutes loop was not happening. I turned in to the crit course for a couple loops. I realized that the pull back like scrapping the mud off the bottom of your shoe really didn't do much, by far the more important movement was the pull up. It really wasn't all that "hard" in terms of a high heart rate of screaming leg pain, it was just those ****ed hip flexors that would fail.
After 1 lap of the crit course Nine Inch Nails Hurt came on my MP3 player. A fitting song, here is a quote "I hurt myself today, to see if I could feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing thats real" I toughed out a second lap of the crit course and then headed home. I realized after turning back that the harder you pedalled and more pressure you put on the pedals the easier it was. On the way back I was up to almost a minute continous before the hip flexors failed. Total ride time 22 minutes.
All in all it was actually more fun than I thought it would be, I like a challenge. I am super keen to improve on them, my goal is to be up to the 35 minute loop in about a week and a half and up to 2 hours by December first.
I walked to the end of my driveway and clipped in my right foot. Challenge number 1, how the hell do I get started?!?!? After being laughed at my a couple young White Oaks Crew members I finally mastered the start. I quickly realized being in the small ring was not where I should be. After a botched shift I was up in the big ring and going....sort of. I could go for about 20 seconds and then both crank arms would drop down. Luckily there was no traffic at the stop sign so I didn't have to try that ****ed start again. By the time I hit Exeter Road I quickly realized the 35 minutes loop was not happening. I turned in to the crit course for a couple loops. I realized that the pull back like scrapping the mud off the bottom of your shoe really didn't do much, by far the more important movement was the pull up. It really wasn't all that "hard" in terms of a high heart rate of screaming leg pain, it was just those ****ed hip flexors that would fail.
After 1 lap of the crit course Nine Inch Nails Hurt came on my MP3 player. A fitting song, here is a quote "I hurt myself today, to see if I could feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing thats real" I toughed out a second lap of the crit course and then headed home. I realized after turning back that the harder you pedalled and more pressure you put on the pedals the easier it was. On the way back I was up to almost a minute continous before the hip flexors failed. Total ride time 22 minutes.
All in all it was actually more fun than I thought it would be, I like a challenge. I am super keen to improve on them, my goal is to be up to the 35 minute loop in about a week and a half and up to 2 hours by December first.