the it's all gone One Key ride

the it's all gone One Key ride, a photo by rOcKeTdOgUk on Flickr.

finally fitted the eliptical chainring i bought ages ago, took off the lovely gold velosolo ring and swapped it for the frankly ugly faulty looking one in the picture. it's supposed to give you a more efficient and powerful cadence, everyone needs that yea? well i was completely underwhelmed at first, it acted just like a normal ring apart from when you look down and see the chain "pulsing" as you turn the pedals. i'd been told to ride it steadily as it used a different technique to normal and it did feel a bit weird, whether this was psychological or not i'm not sure but it took about 4 miles of riding before i stopped looking down and just got on with the ride. out of the saddle (it's a singlespeed so there's lots of that for me) it felt just like my regular set up but sat down cruising on some singletrack that same pulsing i'd noticed earlier seemed to turn into a "surge" and whether it was an illusion that i desperately wanted to justify the expenditure or not i felt i was going along with less effort, i don't think i was faster, i don't think it's a massive percentage of performance enhancement but somehow it seemed like cheating!
the jury is still out, it may have been first ride euphoria and it'll need more testing, but i'll leave it on and persevere.
the blurb that came with the ring said that i might ache differently to how my legs feel normally after a ride and it was true, muscles showed up in my legs i never knew where there, but it was a good ache
ride 79
12 miles
total 1390
commute 417