Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
Anquetil drug his feet over the top by his heels, toe down, which forced him to ride with a higher saddle and point his toes at the bottom, using his calf muscles there to push back rather than pull back. If one raises the toe before pushing the foot over the top, it all takes less energy and creates less resistance. Hence almost no one does toe-down anymore. Degrees of applied pedal force is the same, maybe more. There was a fad for toe-down on this side of the pond, pushed by some American bike racers and theorists, but that faded long ago.
Where you have to use energy to do little more than push your idling foot over the top, with his technique Anquetil was not only pushing his working foot over the top, he was also applying the same power to his cranks there as he, you or anybody else could apply to the cranks at 3 o'c.