Road Cycling - Ratchet Cranks

A guy showed up to my group ride this morning with a set of ratcheting cranks. These things are not set at 180 degrees from each other and you can turn them at what ever spacing you want to. They are noisey as hell but are real mesmerising to watch. On long decents, both of his feet are at bottom dead center. Neddless to say, he was real cautious in turns.

Real weird.

Anyone heard of these? An obvious question is, why?

I saw a guy riding those too, and I am also in SoCal so it may be the same guy. I was driving along PCH in Laguna Beach and saw a guy riding along.....then he passed me going down a hill and both his pedals were down!! They are mesmerizing in a way......I kept trying to look at him as I drove....and you know what they say about running into things that you look at!!
I was telling a mechanic in my LBS about it and he showed me the cranks, they had a set. Supposed to smooth out your pedaling or something like that. Might as well get a fixed gear!

I think they are powercranks.

www.powercranks.com They had a booth in Kona @ the Ironman WC.

The people in the booth were very friendly and informative.


John Cobb (Lance's aero, and bike fit efficiency guru) was asked about them in the "science of speed" seminar a few days before the race. He said "I've seen em, and used em, and had my athletes use em.....I'm not ready to get on that train just yet"

There is some guy near me who occasionally rides a bike with these things. I can't imagine what the advantage is, other than making yourself more eccentric.

BTW, he pulls a home-made trailer with it, and there are numerous bumper stickers on the trailer. One says "have you rinsed your tofu today?". Another reads "no war for oil!!". I think he's trying to be eccentric, but I could be wrong...

Anyone heard of these? An obvious question is, why?

maybe you could use them on a trainer and if you wanted to only spin with one leg you could and not have to clip out the other leg? :p :rolleyes:

What do you do when your front wheel hits a bump and suddenly need to stand on the pedals? How do you hop the bike over a ramp, hole or curb. Sounds like a gizmo for people with more money than sense.

I think they are powercranks.


If they are ratcheting and noisy, they don't "sound" like PowerCranks to me. My brother has a pair of PowerCranks and they are not noisy. They do not have a ratcheting mechanism but use some sort of silent clutch.

maybe you could use them on a trainer and if you wanted to only spin with one leg you could and not have to clip out the other leg? :p :rolleyes:

This guy did show off a bit on a steep hill and go up one legged while everyone gawked.

These were not Power Cranks but something very similar.

Boy, you'd think they were really selling something important on that Power Crank site. Hoopla.