Top Three Reasons Why I Hate Powercranks

When I signed up as a blogger on the Powercranks website, the guys at Powercranks told me to be honest in my posts. "Frey, make sure you write about the good and the bad. We want to hear about your whole training experience," said Andrew Weber.

But, I love my Powercranks. As an update, I recently completed my first group ride on the cranks, which was a 55 miles thanksgiving day bonanza. As recently as 4 week ago, I couldn't cycle further than 10 miles on the things. Also, I did a 7 mile run on Tuesday of this past week, and I averaged a 8:40/mile at a comfortable 140 heart rate. As a comparison, my long runs during my Ironman Florida 70.3 training early this season usually came in at 9:45/mile pace with a 150 heart rate. My cycling and running are experiencing INCREDIBLE benefits.

I must honor my agreement, however. I need to write about some things I dislike about the Powercranks.

It's been hard to come up with ideas for this post. I actually have to search for things to dislike, while all of the things I like could fill up 100 blog posts. I'd say I am 99% satisfied with the product, and 1% dissatisfied.

Here are the top three (actually, the only three I could think of...) reasons why I hate Powercranks:

3) Price

This is one of the most common complaints about the product. I ride the Basic Adjustable model, and this sells for $1,099 new.

2) Bike Handling

With normal cranks, you can raise your butt off the saddle, balance your feet at the 3 o'clock and 9'oclock position, and manuever the bike through difficult situations. With the Powercranks, the only way you can simulateously weight both of the pedals is if both feet sit at 6 o'clock. This makes bike handling tricky.

1) Marketing

The Powercranks website doesn't shy away from making grand claims about the product. Describing the product as, "revolutionary," the website says the Powercranks can improve cycling and running speed, improve VO2 max, cycling efficiency and power, rehab injuries, and the list goes on. One could joke that the website claims the Powercranks cure AIDS and promote world peace. Let me be clear, I am improving in almost all the ways the website claims that I will. However, the website puts these claims out there in such an in-your-face style, that I could see how some athletes may be turned off. Any marketing campaign making claims such as, "improvements will be bigger than you have ever imagined," or, "Improve your basal metabolic rate by using twice as many lower body muscles," will always be greeted with suspicion.

Like I said, I dislike 1% of the product and actually love the other 99%. I just wanted to add some fairness to my posts, since all I've been doing is gushing over the Powercrank experience.