Toes down or no?
 

Do you or should you pedal with your toes pointing down or closer to being level with the ground?
are there any advantages or disadvantages or is it just preference and comfort?

Most pros don't, however Iban Mayo does this and it works pretty well for him. I know its not a technique people teach, I dont know if it is because it ineffective or just out of favor.

IIRC, Mayo does it to keep stress off of injuries from a bad car accident.

"digging" the pedals is more prevalent now than it has been for quite some years. Many of today's Pros seem to have some level of that style. To some extent it is a bit of 'style' preference, but like all style things, they do affect the 'function' side as well.
A 'digging' style through most of the pedal stroke tends to reduce the contribution of the calf muscles and relies more on the uppper leg strength. Allowing more flex and movement in the ankle engages the calfs more.
The biggest problem is often moving back and forth from a flatter or more 'souplesse'/'ankling' style to a 'digging' style over the course of any ride. This relates more to setting the optimum saddle height. A diggin style can have a rider be as much as an inch higher than the same rider using a flatter style. This becomes a problem because setting saddle height in consideration of one style or other will find using the opposite style a problem with that height. If saddle height is set for a flat or ankln style lower than it would be set for a diggin style, then using a digging style for any length of time and under hard efforts, will have detrimental affects on the hamstrings.

If one has a digging style, well then best to cultivate the best out of that style and not try to use a lot of ankle movement, same to be said for a style using a lot of 'ankling'.
"Ankling' seems old fashioned, 'retro' and vintage, yet it does offer many advantages, especially when higher rpm cadences are used and desired.
My own thinking is that variations of 'diggin' styles are more common/popular now in the Pro peleton because using bigger gears and lower rpms have found more favor these days. Overall, racing times have stayed pretty close for the recent decades and I would say that the small increases in speed are due mainly to the much better road surfaces, compared to the average road course of 20 years ago.
Its also indicative of a more Time Trial oriented position, where the seat and body position are well forward and a diggin style is certainly more 'natural' in this position.
Watchin some footage of T of C as I write this, and I'm amazed at the number of riders that actually do have a large element of a diggin style.
Interesting stuff, worth thinking about some more...

I was reading about that today in a training book. The guy in it says he pedals with toes pointing down, but others are more level. He says: "Neither style is more correct than the other. Instead, they are products of anatomy and drilled in by practice." In case you were wondering I got it out of an old book (1992) called Training for Cycling by Davis Phinney and Connie Carpenter.

I knew even before you named it! :)

have a signed copy i picked up when they were doing a bike club to bike club book tour. was just perusing that section last month. not a bad book, but w/cr@ppy illustrations. not as good as lemonds.

I pedal mostly toe-down (use to always be toe-down). But it seems that my pedal stroke is becoming more leveled out. Could be muscle development or the fact that I'm spinning at a higher cadence. Dunno.

The front half of my particular pedal stroke has my foot flat... while the lifting part (back half) of the stroke has my toes down/heel up.

Not sure if this is efficient or not, it's just the way I pedal. I guess next time I'll be looking at my feet more and wondering if I should change anything :)

ankling at high effort is a very easy way to get tendonitis in your achilles the likes of which you wouldnt believe

my feet hold about the same angle in relation to the ground the whole way around, and its slightly toes down

calf muscles are only supposed to keep your foot in about the same angle in relation to your lower leg, not directly contribute to putting power to the cranks, if your letting your ankles move alot all your doing is decreasing the power to the cranks a bit....think about it, crank comes around back to the upstroke, you let your heel go up, that brief movement alone during that transition is a few degrees your NOT applying full power on the upstroke

thanks for the responses

Somewhere around here somebody posted a link to a site that shows the "ankling" pedal cycle. You can slow it down to very, very slow to study it. I tried the search but came up empty(well, I got tired of slogging). The site says to point the toes on the down stroke then have them down on the upstroke, level at top and bottom. I watch my feet and they seem to stay level all the way around; trying to point the toes down is very difficult, they don't seem to want to cooperate so I just stopped worrying about it.

Huh? 1) Lance Armstrong seemed to do pretty well with a high RPM style. If anything the trend in racing in the last 5 years has been to emulate Armstrong and pedal at higher cadences.

2) speeds in pro cycling continue to increase substantially. Fastest times for the TDF keep getting set about every year.

I've never thought about it this way...thanks for the insight. I'll try to change up my pedaling style a bit. Funny thing is I was watching a TDF dvd today and noticed a lot of riders doing a similar stroke to the one I mentioned above. Their heels seemed to be lifting on the upstroke.

Your statement I quoted does make sense though, and now I'm starting to re-think my pedal form.

I use all types of 'styles'--toe down, toe level, heel pushing while on the back of the saddle for hills, hip tilted forward/riding saddle nose, pulling up with the hams,... It all depends on what muscles are fatigued and which are not, the speed I'm trying to maintain, the levelness of the roads, and wind direction/speed.

I have toe'd down from the begining. It seems to keep my calf muscles a little less fatigued(especially the front side). I also stand a lot when climbing so keeping my feet level is tough.

On long rides I will pedal level for a little bit to "stretch out" and loosen up.

+1


Train yourself in all styles, so you can launch into them
when needed to rest other muscle groups during a ride.

I use high rpm ankling on some climbs and low grinding toe-down on others...

and everything in-between. in all cases though, the rest of my
body goes with what my legs and feet are doing and saving energy.

I can generate the most wattage though by 100% flat-footed ankling,
but 'most watts' is not what I use on a ride. I use the 'smartest watts'
and change up style often so the muscles don't get fried


whatever is comfortable...go with it. there are no 'rules'... just power,
and whether it is wasted or not, and sustainable.

I'm a "mudscraper" myself, but point my toes down from time to time to shift around muscle work.

certainly you're right about Lance's higher rpm style. But I think its not that unusual. Many pro climbers are high rpm riders. Where Lance made it unusual is he uses/used high rpm in all disciplines. In time trialing, where many put it into a huge gear and grind away, he dropped into a bit smaller gear and spun away at 100+.
As for emulating Lance, high cadence riding has been around since who knows when; certainly since the 50's and has been a hallmark of proficient cycling since at least back then. Not everyone adapts well to that or uses it as extensively as Lance or some others. Jan is hardly a plodder, but he does choose to ride a slower rpm and push a higher gear. Lemond certainly wasn't a 'spinner' in the pure climbers sense, but did turn the pedals briskly enough to jump effectively and out climb anyone on his good days.
And I guess I should never have used the term 'ankling', since I don;t think theres hardly anyone that employees it the way it was done back when it was a pedaling style. I think a lot of what 'we' did back then can be attributed to compensating for the equipment we had, especially the shoes.
Modern shoes are SO superior that trying to exaggerate 'ankling' might even be very difficult to accomplish. I think these tend to promote a natural pedaling style that prolly works well for most.

It's a pretty good book. I love the older books from 80s and early 90s. Seems like life was easier then...so the books are better. Haha, I'm only 19.

More important than 'toes down' or 'level' is the relationship of foot angle and it's effect on the hips. If you rock your hips (observable from the back) your seat is too high. However, the human body is quite adaptable, and plenty of great cyclists have done quite well without have a 'textbook' pedalling stroke.

read Eddie B's, if you haven't already. Compared to LeMond's and Phinney-Carpenter's it's prehistoric ;)

I've found this diagram helpful in analyzing my pedal stroke.

I have always thought (maybe incorrectly) that I should have consistent amount of power throughout the stroke. Now when I climb a particular challenging hill (we have to hunt for them here), I always break the stroke into two components (glutes/hams and quads/calves). Should I allow myself to recover on the backside of the stroke as the diagram suggests? Am I reading this wrong? I don't have concrete answers, but always have questions. Thanks!