Took delivery of my old Bianchi race bike fitted with the brand new Rotor rings last Saturday, and haven't looked back. If you recall, the Rotor rings are oval chainrings (all explained in Diary #1) and I was going to report back on how they are - so here goes:
1) Initial riding impression - did feel different - as if the first part of the pedal stroke has disappeared. The top part of your chainring isn't there anymore, is what it feel like. Your foot arrives in the middle, power part of the pedal stroke as if by magic. Some have said it's like riding fixed wheel, and it is.
2) Quick Saturday evening ride - I ended up with 2 top ten Strava results! I'm not usually in the top ten anywhere on Strava, but now I was bombing along and getting high results. The rings enabled me to be very fast on flat segments.
3) Hilly riding. Long, 1,500m of climbing ride on Thursday led to noticing better hill performance, and less fatigue - less muscle soreness afterwards.
4) Ride with club today - very good. Easily beating everyone in my group up the hills - without really trying too hard.
So, overall, what a result! Definitely would recommend you at least trying them. I think Rotor dealers have an offer where you can try them for a couple of weeks - probably would take a week of so to get used to and see what benefit they can bring...
Italian events and European climbs