So, all my life I've pedaled by simply pressing down on the pedals. I had no idea how any cyclists got big calves or hams from it, only my Glutes and quads were ever sore.

Then recently I'd heard of the concept of spinning versus mashing the pedals. Practiced this yesterday-- I felt like my hams are doing all the work-- what?!? I don't know how to alternate so quickly between using quad and hams on higher cadences for each phase of the stroke, or where the calves even come into play. I want to become a sprint cyclist too, so this must be pretty important! Please kindly lend me a few pointers. Thank you! -Michael

An easy to engage the hamstrings more is to think about scraping crap off the bottom of your shoes. I find getting a little low and scooting my ass back will get my glutes working some more. There are diagrams online that highlight which muscles are most active at different parts o the stroke.

If you really want to teach yourself to spin, get yourself a set of resistance rollers and learn to push big efforts at higher cadences while riding them. If you're unbalanced with your spin, the bouncing will propel you off of the front or back of the rollers. They'll also offer the benefit of teaching you how to ride a straight line, isolating your upper body movements from your lower body efforts.

Also, something you can do without purchasing equip...is to do long single leg exercises. Do this mostly on flat or very slightly rolling terrain, not really hilly stuff. Do 30 seconds right leg/ 30 seconds left leg etc....for 3-4 minutes (3-4 efforts each leg per 'set') and then clip both feet back in and ride easily for a bit. Then repeat the whole thing a couple more times. If you do this regularly, you'll begin to understand and recognize how your normal (both footed) pedal stroke should feel. It's a transition that I went through over the last couple of years and it all started with me using rollers for my stationary work-outs instead of a trainer.

Best of both is to combine the two. Ride one footed on the resistance rollers, doing the 30/30 intervals until your legs want to explode. It will feel awkward for a bit, but with patience and practice will become second nature.

-Jeremy

Proper alignment of your seat vs your BB makes this more efficient.

Fix gear is the only effective way to learn high cadence and pedaling effectively.

Good luck.

That worked for me.

Greg Lemond wrote well about this in his book: Greg Lemonds Complete Book of Cycling. (Or something like that.)
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He knows a thing or two.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFyXx...hannel&list=UL

Make sure your bike is set up absolutely correctly, then duplicate it with a fixed gear bike. Then have lots of fun. I have 4 fixed gear bikes, 3 pure track bikes, and one commuting bike, and all feed my inner middle-aged hipster, but I find my technique has improved dramatically in the years since I first built one. You can spend all the time you like in a spin class, or on a trainer trying to spin in circles, but the fixed gear bike will fix you up rather quickly.

my bike's a little tall for me, but I have it set up so my feet reach the pedals easily, and knees are directly over the balls of my feet in the 3:00 position. Is this all I need to know in terms of seat positioning? Thanks for the responses thus far!

Source: https://balancedtrainingsolutions.blo...-pedaling.html

Also: https://wilkpt.com/Articles/Singles/p...grevisted.html

Bookmark them for future reference.

At some point on every ride I unclip one foot and pedal along with one leg concentrating on applying force in circles, switch, repeat. Helps develop the muscle memory.

Wow, great tips, glad I read this post.

Both of my coaches have been pretty much anti fixed gear. By necessity, fixed gear will teach to you to be able to put out power over a wide cadence range. But, as far as helping your pedaling stroke, the fixed gear allows you to have a lazy pedal stroke because the momentum carries you through the dead spot, and can be counterproductive.

Riding a fixed gear is essentially the opposite of one legged pedal drills.

I ride my fixed gear occassionally just for a chaange of pace, but I don't think its done anything to improve my pedaling stroke.

I don't agree at all with merlin.

People just think that is just and go out with 53x15 in a fix gear and the cruel reality is that fix gear can help or can mess you up if you don't it right. With kids you have to start with 42x20 or so, so they get used to move the legs fast, that's all they need to learn. With adults is similar but the difference is the intensity and work outs while pedaling.

With adults you start with 42x18 like for 2 or 3 weeks in kind'a hilly terrain and maybe 1 hour tops.. then you swap the work out and the gear for something else... at the end of 3 months the guy at least should be able to do 100 km with 42x16 (this is a killer) around 18 to 22 mph average w/o any problems. Once the guy can handle that it is ready to go because for sure the cadence is already programed in his head and legs (90 to 120 rpm). 3 months of fix gear is a killer... but if done wrong can make just the opposite.


As for the momentum that melin talks, well that's so relative that i don't even want to start arguing it

When i started cycling at age 12 the 1st thing they did to me (us) was put us in a strict regime of fix gear w/o brakes... you have to handle the gears, the pedaling back and forth, learn to stop, skid and stuff... in a couple of weeks we were getting the 42x20 stopped in a dime, no hands "sur place" and stuff... the other thing they did to us was to take the straps (back in the day we used cages and straps) out the pedals. We had nothing else than the cleats to keep the feet in place in the pedals. Result? after a month the pedaling was super rounded because to be able to accelerate we were forced to pedal rounded, the other benefit is that your pacemaking is like a clock, no changes in speed what so ever, thing is pretty common between weekend riders. Try to sprint w/o the straps in a 45 degree velodrome...

This is when I argue the momentum part because even thought momentum helps, if the pedaling technique is not right the momentum will eat you and then you have squared pedaling when tired, then you can't accelerate at all... merlin says that momentum carries you but up to some point because after 35 km/h you really need to push it because the momentum turns to drag and the bikes doesn't accelerates no more unless you go downhill.

The other situation is that if you did fix gear with 46x16 then that explains what you say, the other thing is that you shouldn't feel the momentum dragging you if the legs were fast enough... momentum wont be noticeable if the legs are fast because you move the legs at the same pace. It is interesting what he says tho because it depends on how fast the rider goes too... with fix gear if you need to accelerate you have to keep up with the momentum and the worse part is that the pedaling has to be right or the acceleration will suck and simply nothing will happens... my best guess is that merlin lacks of agility or he is doing the fix gear wrong.

Good luck...

Or you could get all the benefits mentioned above by just riding in your 39-15 for the whole ride. I do this in the winter sometimes and it can be difficult in a group ride with a tailwind.

I think fixed gear riding is an old school technique that works fine but certainly isn't necessary to develop a good rider.

I disagree with Ultraman.
But the beauty of cycling is there is no wrong way to do it, just good ways and better ways.

The muscle memory to pedal one footed.....

Rollers in the middle of a doorway. Doing this helped my pedaling so much. the doorway helps when you forget you are on rollers.

I LOVE the one-foot pedaling tip. I'm going to do this for the 2 miles in/out of my neighborhood I warm up/cool down through every ride.


It was only about 3 months ago when riding with a friend (who did a lot of Velodrome)when I started pedaling mostly "correctly". He was like, "Hey man....why aren't your feet flat?" "Uh....you're supposed to do that?"

I almost exclusively ride alone, and soak up tips that will help in the long run like a sponge. I'd always thought I had the "circular motion"/pedal stroke down pretty well, until the whole "flat foot" tip came in to play and I had to start using a whole new (ie - correct) set of muscles. But it is helping! (yesterday the wind would have normally kicked my ass on the way home...i powered through like a champ)

Can you elaborate on that tip? I did a quick search of the boards and didn't see anything.

Agree with your disagreement

About the one-footed pedaling tip, I can't do it without clips on my pedals. At best I can bring the pedal to about 10:00, even when pulling with hams at 6:00.

I feel like it takes WAY more effort to pedal when I'm spinning instead of mashing-- amazing! I get off the bike with blasted hams and calves. That's a good thing, since my quads and glutes are way-out-of-proportion huge compared to calves and hams. I'm excited about building these muscles from the standpoint of self-admiration in the mirror. hehe. Just goes to show how underdeveloped these muscles in my body are compared to the ones I predominantly used for sprinting in track & field.

But when all-out sprinting on a bike (I'm training to be a sprint cyclist), I don't see how it's possible to coordinate each muscle group's involvement so quickly with such rapid pedaling. Feels like I can only either go all glutes/quads or all hams/calves.

As for that picture posted by Pinkbullet, I saw that the other day. But when I'm pedaling fast or even normally, I don't think fast enough to know which muscles are being used at any point around the circle.

At any rate, y'all's opinions are so varied, I'm going to consider Greg LeMond's book to be the final authority when it arrives in the mail within the next few days (if it explains it well enough). I haven't read all your responses yet, but lunch break is over so I'll come back and soak them in later. Thanks!

That's nice.

This being "the only effective way" is almost certainly false.

I'm a bit confused. Riding with cages and no straps basically ignores the Orange, Blue and Yellow phases in the above diagram. If you were actually applying 'positive' force with that foot in that particular part of the pedal stroke, you'd be coming out of the cage. Otherwise, isn't your upward moving foot (while in that range) actually applying a force of resistance against he opposing downward foot in an effort to maintain it's attachment to the pedal/cage???

I don't doubt that training this way changes your pedal stroke drastically and takes time and patience...but I don't see how this is teaching circular pedaling.

It's the reason that true 'spinners' hate riding bikes with only platform pedals. It's almost dangerous to do. Immediately, the spinning cyclist is going to have his upward moving foot lift off of the pedal because he's trying to apply the positive circular force to that pedal, while not being attached. This is why one-foot drills (while clipped in, and on a freewheel specifically) alert you immediately to the 'dead spots' in your stroke because you'll be releasing the positive force and will feel/hear the drive-train re-engage when you finally reach the 'power' portion of the stroke. With practice and muscle development, you'll be able to keep constant forward circular pressure on your pedals for some time with no breaks in power delivery.

-Jeremy