Originally Posted by timmhaan
need a little help with my pedal stroke. i'm getting much better at pedaling in a circle (i.e. applying power evenly). however, i can't generate much power pedaling like this, and i can only do it on a flat road. when i need more power, for climbing or a headwind, i always revert back to the "gear mashing" technique where most of the power is in the downstroke. increasing my cadence help a tiny bit, but not too much. is this okay? how do you pedal when climbing vs. flats?
hm, just caught your last line about training for races. otherwise i was gonna say it's fine to mash. track sprinters have huge quads for a reason... it's a myth that they have the smoothest pedaling stroke (mountain bikers, actually, have hte smoothest, since they _need_ to maintain the same power on wobbly dirt). so getting big quads is absolutely fine.
sd