I started riding Rotor brand’s Q-Rings a year ago mainly to help mitigate knee pain. The theory is that since the elliptical rings imitate a circular (but smaller) chainring around the “deadspot”, it minimizes the muscular requirements right where the knee is most stressed, at the top or the deadspot.
It is very hard to measure exactly how much the rings actually helped the patella tendonitis I used to endure, but for the first time ever I did not feel a knee niggle all year.
There are plenty of other alleged benefits from Rotor Rings, most notably that if the legs move easier through the deadspot, this should enable the legs to remain in the power stroke for a longer period of time when compared to round chainrings. I did not find that I instantly gained watts, but I certainly did not lose any either. Like the injury prevention, power increases with Q-rings or any equipment for that matter is going to be difficult to quantify.
On the TT bike is where I could actually feel the difference in the pedal stroke. Since getting over the top is obviously more challenging in the TT bars than sitting up on a road bike, it stands to reason that you could lower the front end by a centimeter keeping the same comfort level.
In addition, and perhaps more importantly, I switched to 170mm Rotor 3D cranks from 175mm at the same time, which allowed me to raise the saddle a centimeter. So getting 2cm more drop from saddle to the bars without compromising comfort is a very big deal aerodynamically. How much is hard to say, but is a lot.
Ask Luscan as he was one of the early adopters in Richmond. In fact, it might be when he flew by me when I was going 28mph in the 2010 State TT Championships that I thought maybe I should co-opt his trick. I actually won the old man’s category that day, but still have bad dreams about how absurdly fast he went by. It was crazy. He beat me by over 4 freaking minutes, and you will have to ask him how much of that was due to shorter cranks and Q-Rings because pride will compel me to make some truly ridiculous assertions on that one.
Lastly, looking at what pros ride is a terrible way to asses what might be good for you. Lots of pros ride rotor rings, but lots of pros would ride Huffy cranks from 1979 if they were paid to do so. It is interesting that more and more triathletes are riding shorter cranks, which is purely choice and crank manufacturers don’t care what length their athletes ride. In addition, Rotor makes round rings as well, but more road pros and triathletes are choosing the Q-Rings.
Want to try them for yourself? Rotor is offering a money back guarantee on their Q Rings from now until March 31st. Stop by the shop any time and we’ll get you set up on a set of Q rings. We know you will like them but if for some reason you are not 100% satisfied… just bring them back for a full refund. No hard feelings.
