rollin

I was recently told to lower my heel - should my foot be flat on the stroke? I found it to be uncomfortable...

johnny99

I believe it is true that you don't get much power out of the up stroke (except in a full power sprint), but it is very important to at least pull your leg up so that it is not fighting against your downstroke. If your back leg is dragging while your front leg is pushing, you can easily get big dead spots at the top and bottom of your pedal stroke, which really messes up your spin.

okpik

it should stay at whatever angle is comfortable to you(most folks that means slightly toe down), and stay that way.........ankling wont do you much harm under light loads, but do it when really putting the power down and you will get achilles tendonitis like youve never imagined

Reynolds 

+ 1
Beware of artificially lowering your heel - it could injure your Achilles tendon!

Prince9931

It has been said that riding SS will improve your pedal stoke. Even without trying, you have no choice but to conform.................... When in doubt just force yourself to learn muscle memory

CTAF

get on a bike without clips. See if you can keep your feet on the pedals. If you cant then you prob are pulling up already.

STW

I think I might be pulling up already or at least doing what a lot of people are describing...cause I know I don't bob. There have just been times while riding when the quads tighten up and my friends tell me to change my pedal stroke to something they describe as "wiping your muddy feet off on a door mat." When I apply this, it definately seems to change the muscle groups used, but it makes the stroke feel less fluid and consistent, and very arduous for any real amount of time.

I guess my thought was that it was two separate strokes to give rest to the alternating muscles that utilize at different times, but what everyone seems to describe is a uniform all encompassing type thing. Thanks for your help guys...great wealth of ideas and info.

theshoemaker

I don't know that this is anything widely suggested or anything but I know it works really well with me. I have sort of two modes for pedal strokes:

1) consistant power - this is where I'm focusing on getting power through each complete rotation. I use various methods of thought to keep constant pressure on the chain, some of which have been mentioned. I feel like this is an efficient all around use of strength for longer stretches of road with less dramatic changes, and when I'm not straining.

2) fatique recovery - this is for when I'm really pushing it. I'll mash only, mash, mash, mash, to really move. When I start to hit that burn limit I'll do 2-6 strong upstrokes, letting my "down" muscle groups catch a quick breather. I'll also use standing as another variable to mix in. It's all about squeezing all of the power out of my legs then buying them as much recovery as possible without allowing my speed to suffer. This one takes a bit more practice to get down to a fluid system but it has been worth it.

These make significant differences in speed for me, esspecially on long rides. Once I got good at it I did a couple rides with and without and found that using these litterally brought my ave speed up 3-5 mph. It's become essential to performance for me. It doesn't have as much to do with how much power you have on an upstroke though. It's about utilizing a larger number of muscles to assist. It seems to me once you've trained your legs to do this your "push" groups get almost the same amount of rest as when they are working alone but you are also getting power through your drive chain while they are resting.

Again, I'm no pro, but it's all helped a lot.

531Aussie

^^^ this is more like it


pedaling in circles, or "through 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock" and similar techniques are WAY overrated when it comes to generating power:

https://www.topbike.com.au/pdfs/colso...ly_aug2002.pdf


When I'm riding hard, i think of pounding the absolute crap out of the pedals as hard as i farkin can. When riding flat out, I often ask myself, "am I REALLY pushing the pedals?. Hmmm....not hard enough...PUSH the pedals"

theshoemaker

Yeah actually I guess, on that second "mode", I do the scrape slide too but my up pull is fairly strong. All together is seems to do me well.

remorashadow

Give fixed gear a try, you have no choice but to spin smoothly all the time, it helps a lot. After just a few weeks with one I can spin smoothly at upwards of 130rpm, and I'm grenerally a triathlon/time trial type so I spend most of my time trying to get more power rather than high cadence.

Vinokurtov

File this under bad science regarding the conclusions. Cripes man, they didn't even bother to get a picture of a leg and use an arm as an example. The vast majority of successful coaches would scoff at her "don't do one legged drills" advice, and stating that the brain isn't capable of coordinating a simultaneous up and downstroke is an insult even the most plodding of garage band rock drummers, let alone Neil Peart.

The studies in question are asking/testing riders for immediate gains in effeciency and power output without allowing for adaptation to a new pedalling technique.

Michele Ferrari has published several articles regarding pedaling fluidity, stroke effeciency, Etc. What is clear is that to make a fluid approach effective doesn't happen overnight:

"Such a process of adaptation requires patience and time (usually one or two years) and must be maintained and repeated during the athlete’s entire career."

See: Lance Armstrong's pre and post cancer pedal speed and style.

Given the vast difference in credentials between Ferrari and Colson, I'm inclined to side with Dr. Evil on this matter.

ed073

This is true. I was e-mailing Ric Stern about this about a year ago and his studies confirm it.

Elite trained cyclists barely "pull up" at all.

classic1

But they be smooooth.

In a moment of confusion I actually emailed Howard Stern about this same issue and got a response about lesbians. Much more interesting IMO

Vinokurtov

Jan Ulrich does not a study make

I think we have to keep in mind where the power measurement is taken. The difficulty in getting a true measure of muscular force is that gravity is going to play a fairly significant factor in this equation. Lifting the leg requires significant energy, dropping none. Of course you're going to generate the majority of "power" (measured at the crank) on the downstroke.

But if you're generating any measureable power from the upstroke, and if you factor in overcoming gravitational forces on the weight of the leg, pedal, crank arm, and friction, that actual watts entailed in the "lifting" motion is going to be fairly significant. Imagine having the dead weight of your leg to push ever pedal stroke.

Elite cyclists look at 5-10 watt increases in output as significant. Not focusing in part on maximizing upstroke and 360 degree effeciency is giving away power.

For the Sunday pedaller it's a less an issue.

Thylacine

Lower heels are very popular with Lesbians.

Oh wait, what was the question?

sfrider 

Most of the time, yes, in one form or another. At high cadence it's usually just a light snap with the hip flexor to make sure the leg goes up on its own and doesn't stay on the pedal, so it doesn't need to be lifted by the other leg. When starting from a light or other standstill in high gear and standing up, I actively heave up on the rising leg as I push on the other until I pick up some cadence. Just the easiest way to get going.

SeanKimStyle

you push to 3 o'clock then pull all the way up and intead of pushing down, try to push forward and pull up at 3 o'clock again, you need to do one leg drills on the trainer for a while to get this done right, you'll save so much energy and you'll gain so much strength. push forward, pull, push forward pull, weird feeling, keep doing it, you got it, you can do it, come on push yourself, no pull yourself... do it. do it. i am tired..... good night

rollin

Akadis

I find that when pedalling out of the saddle, if I pull up on the upstroke my other leg automatically pushes harder on the downstroke as an equal and oppisite reaction. I get out of the saddle to maintain speed when going up a short hill rather than changing to a lower gear and then back again. It is seamless as there is no pause in power delivery, and it provides a lot of torque.

When pedalling in the saddle I concentrate on providing power at the top and bottom dead spots where forward and backward forces are needed, this is where ankle flexing plays a part; the up and down portions are automatic and I end up spinning smoothly.

BikeWise1

It's as simple as this, fellas...

Forget about "pulling up". Simply emulate the action of wiping your foot on a mat. You will find smoothness and power when you do.

volare

I don't think that it is safe to really "pull up" with clipless because coming up off your pedal at high force could yield very unpleasant results.

Is that why double straps on clips is still common for track cyclists? Perhaps they use significant force on the upstroke?

Hambone

That is what somebody here once suggested and it helped me go from MASHER to masher (now with a little spin...).

The full mantra is at the top of your stroke think of water falling/rolling off of a waterfall. At the bottom, think of wiping your foot on the matt out front.

531Aussie

I guess there's no real harm in thinking about certain techniques during a training ride, but in a race-type situation, you've gotta be thinking about pounding them pedals

Cycling News contributor:

"The idea of losing power due to a presumably inefficient pedal stroke is not supported either. Research comparing the abilities of state-class and national-class cyclists (Coyle, 1991) showed that the national-class cyclists had what is often incorrectly referred to as and "inefficient" pedal stroke. In a 40k TT test, the national-class cyclists put more of their power into their downstroke, while the slower, less powerful cyclists distributed more of their power in all directions of the pedal stroke. Yep, the more powerful cyclists mashed (at least more than the other cyclists) their way to 40k times that were 10% faster. One way to potentially change the efficiency of your stroke is by manipulating cadence. This is where it gets interesting, because if you pedaled with the intent on being as efficient as possible, you would ride around at a cadence that is much slower than the typically freely chosen cadence of most cyclists (~90rpm). As cadence increases, so does the oxygen demand for a given power output. I personally don't know any top cyclists who pedal all day at 60rpm, so one has to wonder why having an efficient pedal stroke is a desirable goal at all.

While many cyclists, and coaches, will talk about having an "efficient stroke", that concept is really not supported when the variables of cycling efficiency are directly studied. There still might be some good reasons for you to work on your pedal stroke (e.g.: limiting the work done by the rest of your body), and I've yet to find a better way than by using a good old set of rollers"

https://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?...4-11#Pedalling

531Aussie

just because he stopped thrashing his body from side to side doesn't mean he started pedaling in perfect circles. I bet he was 'pounding the crap' (my patented technique), only more aerodynamcially