Originally Posted by xlrogue
I agree that there's nothing to be gained by pulling on the upstroke. Pedal stroke improvements for me are in the 11 to 1 o'clock and 5 to 7 o'clock areas of the stroke, and I think clipless is very helpful there, at least for me. Plus, my big old feet don't fit in clips very well in anything other than cycling shoes anyway, and I find clipless way easier to get into from a dead stop than clips. YMMV.
It is in the area of the arc of pedal movement that you have to understand. without clipless- you will put power in from say 10 oclock to 5. As the foot moves out of this area- it will not be of any benefit so you learn not to pedal out of this range. In fact 10 to 5 is probably the extreme that any one can pedal. With me on clipless- I will still start at 10 but will continue round to at least 7 without thinking about it. When I do start thinking about the pedal stroke- It will be from 10 right throught to 10. In other words full circle. That does take some practice and I do this frequently but if you learn to pedal in a full circle and don't even know you are doing it- Then you can imagine the extra power that is getting to the back wheel. And once the system is learnt- The body doesn't feel it- Does not take any extra effort and the legs do not realise they are doing any extra work.
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