rousseau

Check out Lance Armstrong's pedalling at 4:12 of this Youtube video:

Lance Armstrong Alpe D'Huez 2001

Do you pedal like that? Is it helpful or good? Yesterday on my ride I tried doing it for a while, and today I've woken up with somewhat sore ankles.

What say you?

carlfreddy

If I'm climbing and out of the saddle I pedal in a fashion similar to that, maybe not with as extreme a downward angle of the toe.

cooker

If it hurts, don't do it...you'll get an injury. Lance pedals like Lance, you pedal like you.

MIN 

What exactly are your referring to regarding his pedaling technique?

DocRay

Toes down.

Made famous by Anquetil.

Bontrager

Next time I'm at the top of Alp d'Huez I'll try it and get back to you.

toucci

I like to use my calves for extra power when other muscles are getting tired.

MIN 

Biomechanically it would seem to move your working muscles forward - ie. from the glutes to the quads.

rousseau

It's not strictly just toes down. He's flipping his feet around like he's wearing, erm, flippers. As if he were snorkelling. I was trying this out yesterday and got more power in my stroke, so I went significantly faster. Having said that, I couldn't keep it up for very long.

I'm just curious what people say/think about this technique.

knobster

I talked to a couple of professional cyclists that said it gives them much more power when they have their toes pointed like that. They only use it climbing. I do it also and it seems to help.

phoenity

To me it just looks like the usual foot movement when you're pedaling toes down like that. Toes down on the downstroke then flatten the foot a bit so it's a more fluid movement through the upstroke and back to the downstroke.


My feet move about the pedals like that too when I go toes down. Really works the calves...

cooker

Here's what Sheldon Brown and Jobst Brandt have to say:

Sheldon Brown:
Some older cycling books and articles recommend the practice of "ankling." This refers to changing the angle of the foot fairly drastically during the course of the pedal stroke, so that the toe is pointed upward at the top of the stroke, and downward at the bottom. The idea is to make more use of the muscles of the lower leg, and to permit "pedaling in circles", i.e., applying more force to the cranks at top and bottom dead center.
This practice is pretty much discredited these days. If carried to an extreme, it can cause injury. This happened to me when I was a teen-ager; I had read about ankling, and had just acquired my first pair of toe clips, just before setting out on my first overnight tour. I ankled for about the first 30-40 miles, when there was a sudden sharp pain in one of my Achilles tendons. I had to lower the saddle, remove the toe clips, and finish out the 4 day tour pedaling on my arches, because I couldn't bear the slightest load on the front of my foot, pulling on the Achilles tendons. For about a month thereafter, I would need to massage my Achilles tendons for about 5 minutes each morning before I would be able to walk. 40 years later, I've still not completely recovered from this injury.

Jobst Brandt:
Ankling, a topic of much discussion, has been claimed to improve performance in bicycling, although not by racers and coaches. It has been touted as one of the techniques for excellence that appeals to bicyclists mainly because it requires no additional effort. That there are different ankle motions while pedaling is apparent, although most of these are not by choice nor do they effect efficiency. Because so much attention was given the subject in the 1960's, it prompted a study in Italy, in which some leading racers noted for their abilities as well as a distinct pedaling style were fit with instrumentation to numerically capture the stroke. Among them was Jacques Anquetil who had a noticeably different ankle motion.

The study determined that there was no consistency among those tested and that ankling, much like people's walking gait, is caused by physical individuality rather than any advantage. Typically, some walking gaits are so pronounced that a person can be recognized by it at a distance. Some people raise their heel before stepping off on the next stride while others "peel" the foot from the floor in a continuous motion. To artificially emulate someone's ankle motion or lack thereof, while pedaling, is as useless as emulating a walking gait. The study laid ankling to rest for a while, but because urban legends have a life of their own, rising again at the slightest opportunity, ankling, with its lore, is assured a long life.


www.sheldonbrown.com

MIN 

Sheldon Brown is an octogenarian and he was using toe-clips. Not really relevant.

Turboem1

I love how Lance's pedaling technique looks in that video. At certain side shots his feet make a motion as if he was running really fast.

I think he does it because he is pulling up very hard on the upstroke so his toes point down. Ill tell you it really works the calves.

cooker

And the OP already hurts.

rousseau

But is that just because I've never used the technique before? I wonder...

Adagio Corse

I say get a training coach if you're going to experiment with awkward unnatural movements, because the risk of injury is very real.

krazyderek

keep in mind he's going up a 8-10% grade there, so what looks like toe pointing down is a little misleading cause of he angles.

but phil always used to say "he's dancing now", lance is a little different where he has alot of power in his thigh's from when he was a tri-athlete, so he likes to jump out of the saddle and "dance around" more then other people.

One last thought that popped into my head about this, it's hard to tell weather he's really toeing, by pushing his toes down at the end of the pedal stroke, or pulling his leg letting his ankle relax a bit as he pulls up the back, which is more likely the case when trying to put out power in a high torque situation like climbing you're often doing alot of pushing with one leg while pulling with the other.

mkington

I did this when I first bought clipless pedals and didn't know any better, I got pain at the top of my shin where the shin meets the knee. I soon stopped and now make a concious effort to avoid it