Road Cycling - Will biopace chainrings hurt me?

I have a late 80's Univega that came with Shimano 105 components and biopace chainrings. This bike has been mostly unridden through it's life and only recently did I start riding on the road again. If I reach my fitness goals, I may reward myself next season with a new bike and round chainrings, but until then I'm wondering if the biopace chainrings are causing me to learn bad habits that will be hard to break later? They don't feel bad to me, but I do notice my cadence feels a little off when climbing hard.

Should I cough up the money and switch to round now? I would rather upgrade to a decent bike shoe and clipless pedals first, as my toe clips and tennis shoes definitely feel like they are holding me back!

Dave

No, I don't think Biopace will cause any lingering bad habits. I used to use Biopace and finally replaced them with round after they wore out.

I would agree that getting some clipless pedals would be a much higher priority than replacing the rings.

Biopace was actually a fairly good idea. The downfall is that they only work properly for lower/steady cadences. They start to feel unnatural for climbing and high cadences (as you've noticed).

I would agree that getting some clipless pedals would be a much higher priority than replacing the rings.

Just to add some debate, Sheldon "Know it all" Brown argues that clipless are not compatible with biopace. :) He writes:

They are also less useful for cyclists who use clipless pedals, because these pedals encourage a more circular pedaling motion. They allow efficient power delivery during what would otherwise be "dead spots" of the pedal stroke. Since clipless pedals permit power to be applied through the full 360 degrees of the pedal stroke, there is less benefit to be gained from the Biopace shape.

You can read the whole article here.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/biopace.html

:beer:

Well Biopace rings are cadence specific. That is they work only for a pretty narrow range of cadence. I had a bike with them way way back and got rid of the rings. I like to run a high spin and Biopace kind of discouraged that. The Biopace was much less of an influence on larger rings. The 52 tooth ring is nearly round. The 42 tooth ring is only slightly more deformed then the 52. These bigger rings allow a pretty normal cadence. But the small ring on triples in Biopace is dern near square and it sure feels that way when you pedal it above about 40 rpm.

Would that cause a "bad habit"? Well probably not. I would suggest that you ride the current bike until you feel like upgrading to something a bit more current.

I also think that any money spent would be better spent on cycling shoes and clipless pedals.