catonec 

Nice post.

I am also a geared rider who focus's mainly on cadence. Im comfortable spinning around 75-80 and I shift up or down as my "energy" changes. The hills of course kill my avg cadence per hour so I just use my full range of gears and give it hell alternating seated and standing if necessary.

kbarch

That article is focused on power output. You're quite right: pedaling circles will not make anyone more powerful. But technique is about efficiency, or, in terms the article used, decreasing the need for power.

I think there are indeed 'pedaling technique aids' in the marketplace, namely rollers as others have suggested, but maybe they aren't promoted as such. One reason there aren't more such aids is because efficiency isn't as exciting or marketable as raw power. I mean, who would try to make a business of telling athletes how to reduce their power output? Look at "aero." It's about making the air more still around you as you move - you don't want to be wasting your energy on creating turbulence, but we talk about making our bikes "aerodynamic." Who wants to hear "stillness" when talking about their bike?

Oldhead

When I first started riding on the street I was a pedal masher. Then one day I happened to be working in someones house that rode so I asked questions and learned about cadence. I bought a catseye and since it was winter I had the bike on the trainer. By the time the weather got better I was no longer a masher. Now I find it feels weird to ride lower then a 90 to 100 cadence. The more you spin the more natural it will feel and your ticker will thank you for it.

chaadster

Now high cadence is good for your heart?

This parade of misinformation just won't stop.

chaadster

You've got that wrong. Go back and read the studies; pedaling technique has vitually no impact on gross efficiency.

That take-away you cite was within the context of pro riders doing multi-week stage races like VdE and TdF. Furthermore, I don't even think that was a study, just speculation. He diidn't cite it anyway.

Oldhead

Explain

bruce19

I was responding to your statement that "Pedaling technique has very little impact on anything" and that's not true.

I am interested in your experience with rollers. Mine has changed my pedaling technique and that has definitely had an impact on my ability on the bike. Do you have any experience with rollers? I'd be surprised if you have and it had no effect on your technique.

bruce19

Reread the article. There were several studies that led to the conjecture of the author that I cited. One was with 7 "elite" cyclists (1991), a follow up with 8 riders whose level was undefined, then "Martin tested 13 racing cyclists (category 1, 2 and 3) and 35 active men who didn't own bicycles. Note that "First, the non-cyclists were somewhat larger than the cyclists and so had more muscle mass to generate watts. Second, they had a slightly higher percent of fast-twitch fibers compared to the racing cyclists. Each subject did short, all-out sprints on an ergometer 4 times a day for 8 days." So, the cite was not simply within the context of pro riders doing multi-week stage races. Are we reading the same cite? I'm starting to think maybe we're not. here is the one I was quoting...Perfect Pedal Strokes | Road Bike Rider.

kbarch

We get it. You don't appreciate smoothness or anything but quantifiable force. The thing is, when a technique makes a qualitative difference - when some people find themselves riding faster or even twice as long simply because they ENJOY it so much more regardless of how negligible the direct performance benefits may be, you may not care, but it's not 'misinformation,' and you can't honestly call it bogus.
If ever the expression "different strokes for different folks" applied, it's here.

bruce19

I found this interesting.......Lance Armstrong pedaling styl discussion. Somehow Lance Armstrong managed to increase his pedaling efficiency according to the author....."This improved, more efficient,technique allows Lance to pedal at higher cadences and higher power than most of his competitors and it also explains one more thing not mentioned in the newsletter; it explains how he managed to increase his pedaling efficiency 8% from 1993 to 2001. This was documented in the study by Coyle entitled "Improved muscular efficiency displayed as Tour de France champion matures." Improved efficiency is another way to improve power. So, he is not only applying power for a greater portion of the circle he is able to do so using his energy more efficiently."

svtmike

Yup, Extraordinary Pedaling Optimization works.

gregf83 

You're quoting a very controversial study(https://sportsscientists.com/2008/09/...rs-evaluation/) that was at one time offered as an explanation for LA's performance. That study has been discredited and we know some other reasons that might explain LA's results.

If you're talking about Powercranks, which claim massive power increases after a period of training, they have been studied and the results found no improvement after training for 13 wks.

Here are the conclusions from the other article you cited (research by Jim Martin) which I think might be more useful to the OP than all this talk about pedaling technique:

chaadster

First of all, that has nothing to do with the high-cadence/heart thing.

Secondly, I certainly do appreciate good form, and yes, the application of force as early in the power portion of the stroke as possible.

However, I seriously doubt that I-- or you or anyone else for that matter-- could watch 10 cyclists on the road and discern with any quantitative process, which ones ride fixies or use rollers, and which ones don't.

Furthermore, it doesn't matter, because the fact is that plenty of good and bad riders both do and don't. Get it?

I wouldn't even say that roller riders necessarily have smoother pedaling or better form than anyone who doesn't. For example, check out this guy:


And yes, when the rubber meets the road, it's not smoothness that matters, but power. Efficiency is quaint; just pedal slower. Efficiency doesn't make you faster. To go faster than the next guy (speaking within the confines of this discussion, meaning what you can do at the pedals) you need more power. Period. Smoothness does not matter.

Lastly, I'll reiterate my point that there are not necessarily any deleterious effects from riding a fixie ( I'm leaving space for the specificity issue), and none for sure from riding rollers, but I simply don't believe that anyone is getting ahead of the game by using either, nor falling behind by not using them. There is no proof for either of those cases, though I have no doubt that for elite athletes, varied training that my afford small gains at the margins is not wasted, and for casual riders, overall form gains can derive from either, or simply spending more time on the road.

Carbonfiberboy 

I would point out this paragraph in your link:which seems quite bizarre to me. Gross efficiency is not a factor in performance? Oxygen in/power out seems to me very much a factor. And endurance training does not improve cycling efficiency? Really? Seems like more Lance bashing to me. From the study link I posted earlier, 4 years after your link:The PDF available at that link:
Gross efficiency and cycling performance: a brief review | Jobson | Journal of Science and Cycling
goes on to discuss the mechanisms and training methods which improve GE.

The Powercrank results you refer to involved an extremely fit rider who claimed to already pedal perfect circles so that the Powercranks had very little effect. Probably so. I haven't tried them, nor do I know of anyone one this forum who has. However, I suspect that perfect unweighting on the backstroke is much less important than pushing forward and pulling back for developing a smooth pedal stroke, on which sectors Powercranks would have little or no effect if one had already developed a good stroke on the rollers.

gregf83 

You misread the paper. He said gross efficiency is not a factor associated with performance in elite cyclists. In other words it doesn't appear to be correlated. This is something very simple to measure and no one has found that high level cyclists have efficiency that's higher than untrained athletes. Having a high gross efficiency is interesting but not a predictor of performance.

From No differences in cycling efficiency between world-class and recreational:

kbarch

Sort of; except things usually matter to an individual regardless of whether they matter in general.

The idea of going fast on a bicycle (of all things) is pretty quaint to begin with if you ask me. And you know, one could just as easily say that absolute speed does not matter. For most of us, even many of us who enjoy going fast on bicycles and even racing from time to time, rides are not time trials; life certainly isn't. If you want to go faster than the next guy, fine, but you don't need absolutely more power, you just need to be applying more power than the next guy at the time.

chaadster

Whatever.