Old 11-07-05 | 02:41 PM
  #5  
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DannoXYZ
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Joined: Jul 2005
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From: Mesa, AZ

Bikes: Moots RCS, tandem, beach-cruiser, MTB, Specialized-Allez road-bike, custom track-bike

No, don't force a higher cadence, that just makes the lobsided pedal-motion wobble even worse. What you want to work on is the neural-muscular connections and mental timing that activates the proper muscles at the time time in order to create a round pedal stroke.

Visualizing is very helpful. Imagine you don't have any pedals, but have a string tied to the crank's pedal hole to your big-toe instead. In order to get the crank to spin, you always have to "lead" the crank around with your feet. That is, the motion your feet is moving is ALWAYS at 90-degrees to the crankarm.

That means when the pedal is at the bottom of the stroke, your feet must be moving backwards horizontal to the crank. That's where the "scraping feet" motion comes in. Get some mud on the bottom of your shoes, stand on the mat in front of your door for 5 minutes and scrape the mud off. Then repeat for the other foot. You'll notice that the necessary motion is perfectly horizontal, there's no vertical movement up or down, just backwards.

You also did one very good exercise the other day, one-legged riding. Try it intentionally this time. Go slow, 8-10mph or so, and pick an easy gear. Then clip out one let; I like to rest it on the chainstay as far back as necessary to clear the spinning pedal, or you can hold it sideways far enough to clear. Then SLOWLY move your feetin a circle. You'll find that it feels VERY heavy on the upstroke. That's because you've been using muscles from the other leg to push up this leg on the upstroke. That's power that could've been used to push the bike instead. So... focus on the mental control of the muscles that you need to contract to pull back and up. And you'll find that you don't have to push on the downstroke. Practice this for 20-30 seconds and clip back in and keep up the round motion. Then unclip the other leg and repeat. This is NOT a physical workout, it's a mental practice of technique.

Once you get down the feel of this motion, be aware of doing it when you're riding. Especially going up rollers, you can focus on spinning in circles. Then as you crest the hill and accelerate, don't upshift, but spin up that same gear and try to stay smooth and circular. Once you start bouncing, back up the RPMs and upshift. Then spin that gear up as well.

Don't worry about RPMs and high cadence, developing the round smooth motion will automatically give you the RPMs.

Last edited by DannoXYZ; 11-07-05 at 03:35 PM.
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