Modifying this metaphor a bit, more like central planning was a motorcycle in comparison with a market economy bicycle, since the Soviet initial industrial growth was much faster than that of the industrialized bicyclists had been.
All the while , the capitalist bicyclists were shooting with big guns at the Soviets on their motorcycle ! The main reason the Soviet motorcycle slowed down was because they had to spend on defense against these wars being waged on them by the bicyclists, not because of the central planning of their motorcycle. There were about five shooting bicyclists and only one motorcyclist.
At one point, the German bicyclist even crashed into the Soviet motorcycle in a suicide bomb attack, setting the Soviet motorcycle way back. Of course , there were four or more other capitalist bicyclists, so the German sacrifice , on balance, helped the bourgeoie bicyclists to get ahead in the the race so far, but there are other motorcycle projects to come. After the German suicide bomb attack, the U.S. bicyclists developed an X-ray and made thousands of them, training them on the Soviet motorcycle.
CB
^^^^^
Wojtek Sokolowski
Now, a bunch of US pundits armed with the 20/20 hindsight is speculating that at the end, central planning had limitations. Duh. Of course it did, but this was like a wheelchair for a handicapped person racing a physically fit person on a bicycle. The latter wins, and the hindsight pundits say that that the former lost because of his wheelchair and he should have been riding a bicycle instead. These hindsight pundits forget that at the beginning of therace th ehandicapped guy was in such a bad shape that under no circumstances he could ride a bicycle, and if it were not for the wheelchair he would not even be in the race. Such hindsight sepculations are usually nothing more but mythmaking instead of a serious historical analysis