There is still that question which niggles at me: One-legged training drills?

To me, that is a classic demonstration of the pull-up that occurs in some circumstances. If you don't pull up with force on the pedal (ie, in addition to lifting your leg), you are going to go nowhere after the first downward stroke.

I can see one legged drills can be done on platforms, but there is a need to "scrape" the pedal (and therefore there has to be an upward vector force involved) and a dead spot definitely would appear on a segment of the upward stroke, the pedal instead relying on momentum to get it through to a smidge after TDC.

I do tend to agree that the higher the cadence, and therefore the lower the gear, the less force is used to lift the pedal, but then there is less force used on the downstroke, too.

Of course, all this is open to being disproved. By Andy Pruitt. And bacciagalupe.