Originally Posted by
gregf83
This is incorrect as you can't tell, from watching a film, how much force the rider applies through the handlebars to counteract whatever pedal force is being applied.
As has been discussed earlier the pedal force of riders peaks at around 2 times the average force and this occurs around 3 o'clock. No amount of riding on the rollers will significantly change this or produce any meaningful power on the upstroke. It's not difficult to keep a still upper body while pedaling with uneven force.
Riders may vary a little in how they apply force through a pedal stroke but they basically all look like:
I was working out on the aerobars tonight and hey, I can't pedal worth a nickel on the aerobars, either. All I can do is push down and pull back a little, too. These guys had their shoulders 5cm higher than their hips! I can't even get close to that position. My thighs hit my ribs long before that. Having the right body structure for TTing is part of the talent. I'd like to see a plot of some Diesel and climbing specialists on the road, too, to see if their plots look any different.
I can guarantee you that the Ram doesn't pry on his bars unless he's sprinting. That's actually a little funny. Who has calories to spend on that? The muscles in his upper back and arms don't move and his butt doesn't rock, either. All that happens is his legs go around. I leave it for the reader who's watched a lot of video to decide whether our champions pedal round or not (unless they've been on a solo break all day in the mountains).
I've found it helpful to ride the rollers in front of a mirror. Oddly, I do have a bit of upper body motion at low effort, but that mostly goes away at higher efforts. I guess one gets good at what one practices.
This upstroke thing is a silliness. It happens that the national champion, subject A, has a lower peak force and does pull up. I think that's pretty odd, but hard to argue with success. As I've said about a zillion times in various threads, the pulling up business is a red herring. Of course it's better to push down with the 180° opposite foot. The important thing for climbing is to keep a constant torque on the bottom bracket, which is the opposite of pulling up, which would only increase the pulsing. Nonetheless, champions do pull up sometimes, typically in the final shootout for a mountaintop finish, when they are digging for every watt.
One needs to look at total instantaneous BB torque, rather than one pedal, which I've never seen done. I don't think it's as important at high cadences, say over 85, because the accelerations become so slight as to be irrelevant, but one does what one practices.
No comment on it being a really good idea to make one's spin on the rollers less smooth, eh?