Originally Posted by
Anarchy4ever
Am I understanding this right?
1. rocking the bike does help generate more speed, but it is less efficent.
2. It is less efficent for two reasons,
A. your using additional arm muscles to generate the back and forth movement. which means your wasting energy, because this back and forth movement has no down force. and it is the down force that propels the bike.
B. the side to side motion generates ALOT of friction on the tires. this i because you are riding the bike on an angle. If you dont beleve me try holding your bike sideways for a few seconds the next time you ride, and see if you dont eithier start slowing down, or even here the tires rubbing against the ground. This friction creates alot of drag, thus reducing your overall gain even further.
3. Personally, I have been able to sprint at very high speeds, without rocking my bike. I still use alot of arms to keep the bike stable while standing. but I am concentrating all my power too my legs.
You're probably not accelerating as fast as pro sprinters. This means you are not pushing down as hard with your feet and likewise not pulling up as hard on the handlebars. If you weigh 150 lbs and you stand on the pedals in a sprint without using your arms you can only apply 150 lbs to a pedal. If you pull up hard on the same side handlebar you can apply considerably more force but a consequence of pulling up on the bar is that the bike will tilt to the side.
The bike moving from side to side is not inefficient. The primary source of inefficiency is if you let your center of gravity bounce up and down. This ends up in useless work but it is a reasonable sacrifice for short bursts of power.