Originally Posted by
gregf83
Sorry, but there's no magic gains in efficiency here. You could pedal a perfect circle with uniform torque throughout a pedal revolution and it won't make you any more efficient. Efficiency is defined as energy out/energy in. This is easy to measure in a lab and it's been done many times. Pulling up or modifying your pedal stroke isn't any more efficient than pedaling the way most people do which is to exert maximum torque when the pedal is at 3 o'clock and unweight the pedal on the upstroke.
If you are generating more power by changing your pedal stroke you will also be burning more calories. Which isn't a bad thing but it's not more efficient by any conventional definition of the word.
The goal of increased "Efficiency" as used by most so-called bicycling experts is so over used and oversold as a be-all/end-all need for every cyclist, as to be almost without meaning. Almost as empty a cycling buzzword as "Effective."