Originally Posted by
Velo Dog
I've seen at least two or three over the years, and it's one of those things that makes you blink and say, "Huh?" You need rotating motion at the drive wheel, and on most bikes you have rotation at the crank. I don't see any advantage in starting with linear motion and converting it. It's got to add weight to the system, and while you don't really pull up on the pedals much as you ride a conventional bike (that's a myth, disproven many times in tests), you do carry the pedalling effort a little more than 180 degrees. With the levers, seems like you'd lose that small additional input.
That's not my experience, I pull up hard to the point where I can't ride platform pedals without a conscious effort to
not pull up.
Can you cite references to scientifically valid, independent tests that you refer to?