sleepy

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Gyrine

Actually, the study riders that used platforms also had on tennis shoes. Kinda throws the whole "rigid sole" thing up in the air as well.

Fiery

It's small adjustment, no more than a couple cm at the extreme. I can live without it. I was just pointing out that the fact that the feet aren't locked in a predetermined position on platform pedals is not necessarily a bad thing, ergonomically at least.

flatlander_48

No, that's why I ride what I ride.

achoo

And I wear slippers to walk across my bedroom to the bathroom in the middle of the night - if I bother to put anything on at all. That doesn't make bedroom slippers a good shoe to wear for a track meet, or on a construction site.

Putzing along at 60% threshold for a minute is the same as walking across your bedroom at 2 am to pee.

It's a useless study.

JohnDThompson 

My point was, if you want secure foot retention with toeclip pedals, you need to use slotted cleats with them.

garysol1 

Clip less pedals.....
Allow for you to use a light and stiff soled cycling specific shoe. For me at least that is reason enough. My feet would be very sore after 5 hours in the saddle using a non rigid soled shoe.
Clip less pedals......
Keep your feet in proper position on the pedals..... Not to far forward and not to far back.

That's the 2 BIG reasons for me to ride clipless....

qclabrat

I started using pedals with toe clips in my early teens because Lemond, my childhood idol, was using them. Before then, I was fine with platforms on a single speed with coaster brakes and a Kmart ten-speed, as my riding was not demanding and mostly used to get from point A to B. But with the purchase of my first "good" bike, a Peugeot, I ventured further which necessitated the climbing of larger hills. Along with the clips and my wooden soled Sidi shoes, I felt so much more connected to the bike especially on the climbs. However, this connection had a price, my feet would throb with pain due to the tightness of the straps only after an hour or two of riding.

Clipless pedals became popularized a few years later for cycling enthusists, though by that time I had fallen out of love with cycling and headed off to college. After getting married and kids, I started riding again about 15 years ago. By this time toe clips with horizontal cleated shoes had long been replaced by various "clipless" systems. I continued to ride clipped (with sneakers) for a few years, but eventually bought a second hand bike with entry level Look pedals. At the time road cycling was at its high, as Armstrong was piling up his TDF victories, so everyone including me was now adorned with clipless pedals and colorful jerseys.

Currently, I have 3 road bikes with clipless pedals; DuraAce, Speedplay and the old Look. But more frequently take out the bikes with toe clips, mostly because my road rides are short, riding with the kids, or somewhere I'm just commuting to so planned on walking or hiking when I arrived.

I've also spent more time on the trails this past year then years past and found more benefits with clipless in ascents, where I'm constantly changing directions when climbing. Additionally going downhill and bumping through roots and rocks, the Eggbeaters keep my feet planted on the pedals. All that being said, I'm going back to platforms (with rivets) on 2 of my mt bikes as my riding lately has been getting technical to a point where I need the step off frequently. When my skills improve I'll go back to the Eggbeaters or some variant.

When I get back to more serious road riding I'll likely again embrace the clipless systems, or whatever the pros are using..... But for now toe clips seem fine to me, they fit most pairs of shoes I own, they are cheap and I have a box full of them. I also have a box of clipless pedals, most of which I don't plan to ever use again and many missing cleats. Boy, I do love the simplicity of toe clips.

Stucky

Although I recently switched to clipless, I've never at any time bought into the idea of "power on the upstroke". The idea is patently ridiculous; as when one pedal is in the upstroke, the other pedal is on the downstroke. As long as you are always applying force to the downstroke pedal, the upstroke will take care of itself/doesn't matter.

Some kind of foot retention is good, though- and while I like clipless well enough, I can say that it really doesn't matter to me whether I use clipless or loosely fastened straps and cages. 'Long as it keeps one's canal boats from slipping off the pedals, it's good.

I've noticed not so much as an iota of performance gain from switching to clipless. (Not that I was expecting any)

Leinster

No steep grades around your neighbourhood then?

Stucky

Quite the opposite. There are no flats here. It's like a roller-coaster.

OldsCOOL

Same in my area. I partially agree with what you had said about the upstroke myth, I merely unload on the upstroke to prevent loss of power on the downstroke i.e. wasted energy.

garysol1 

Your body is not capable of making very much UPSTROKE power. Hell, we are doing good to just unweight that upstroke foot. Thats just plain old body mechanics fact. Essentially the upstroke does take care of itself. Ride a few miles doing nothing but upstroke and let us know how it goes.

Stucky

Exactly!

And since we have two legs, and the pedals are at 180* extremes, whatever one side is doing, the other side will doing the opposite of.

And it is my belief that consciously worrying about "the upstroke" results in lowered efficiency, because we essentially can't split our efforts- i.e. we can't put maximum force into the downstroke of one leg, and at the ame time be applying force in the opposite direction with the other leg, even if we somehow did have power in the upstroke mode- which we do not.

79pmooney

Have you guys ever looked at the power measurements of a racer's pedaling stroke? Up and across the bottom and top are all real numbers, less than the downstroke, but quite real. If you race, you learn to pedal all the way around to save as much of the big muscles as you can because when things get hard, you'll need them.

If you trained with a coach in the old days, you would spend some time pedaling with no effort on the downstroke. Those miles suck. Your seat will get VERY uncomfortable. But it is part of learning to pedal a "round" stroke.

Those of us who ride fix gears know how important that upstroke is. And we know well that make a grade steep enough and if we pull a cleat out, we are walking. As I have gotten older, I have had to look at my toestraps more carefully because I have suffered foot injuries pulling too hard. And I have found only with quality straps can I pull hard enough to get up those hills. (The fabric straps are plenty strong, but they slip and I walk.)

Those who can win races without pulling up on their cleats are those who are so gifted that they can win using 75% or less of their gifts. Ken Griffey could humble me at a batting cage with one hand behind his back. So a good batter only needs one hand?

garysol1, you body can be trained to pull on the upstroke. Just like any other training. Not much fun, but once learned, it becomes an integral part of your ride.

stucki, "And it is my belief that consciously worrying about "the upstroke" results in lowered efficiency, because we essentially can't split our efforts-..." Keep working on that upstroke. It will become muscle memory and you won't have to think about it any more.

Ben

Leinster

Disagree, on both counts. I've been consciously upstroking on steep, out-of-saddle climbs since I first rode with clips-and-straps when I was 13, to the extent that I now do it unconsciously and my foot comes away when I climb out of the saddle on platforms. You can tell with runners and clips because your foot lifts off the pedal and pulls on the strap. "Plain old body mechanics" tells me I can lift my leg just as well as I can put it down; that's how I climb stairs. And I could climb stairs with 20lb weights around my ankles if I had to. I can exert more power on the down stroke, sure, because my leg lifts 185lbs every time I go up a step, but to say my body is "not capable of making very much upstroke power" is just not true. Even if my upstroke only generates 10% of the power of my downstroke, to ignore the upstroke is to deny myself that 10%.

The pedals are at rigid 180deg, but that doesn't mean pushing on one prevents pulling on the other. Watch some Yacht racing on youtube. The guys hand cranking the sails in and out, as they get to the end of the line down to the 60rpm range they'll be pulling hard up on one side while pushing down hard on the other, they're leveraging one side against the other. No, arms aren't the same as legs, but the 180deg crank principle is similar.

And there's a clear difference between unloading the upstroke, loading the upstroke, and counter-loading the upstroke. One is riding with flats, the 2nd is climbing with foot retention, and the 3rd is a track stand.

Stucky

Yes, but you know what? Any "up power" you're generating on the upstroke is likely be neutralized by taking that same amount of power away from the downstroke on the other side. In other words, it's a ero net-sum "gain". In fact, you might even be losing something in the mix, because I've seen studies (probably posted on this forum- where else? ) which say that pulling on the upstroke is very power-inefficient.

But I do agree about the platforms-- in that being able to "pull around" is a more natural motion, than just merely unloading- especially at moderate to high RPMs. That is where foot retention offers a benefit; I just don't think it helps us to create any additional power- it just feels good and is more ergonomically efficient.efficient.

CliffordK

From the article that started this discussion:
Effects of Pedal Type and Pull-Up Action During Cycling, G. Mornieux, B. Stapelfeldt, A. Gollhofer, A. Belli, International Journal of Sprits Medicine, December 19, 2007



If 90° is the maximum downstroke, then 270° should be the maximum upstroke (which is pretty low, even in the case, dotted line, where they were trying to pull up).

However, there are several things about this chart. First of all, they averaged all the cyclists, and do not supply error bars or standard deviation. So, this doesn't mean that some cyclists could have been better than pulling up than others, while the average is still low.

The study was done at 90 rpm. It may well be that it is more difficult to pull up at 90 rpm than 40 rpm.

Again, bad interpretation of at least this data. If you fix the power output at 60% effort (say 250W), then either tell a person to pull up or not, while generating the SAME power, then the downward force must necessarily decrease as the upward force increases.

In the case of standing hill climbs, my interpretation is that one is already at 100% of the possible downward force of the pedals due to standing (plus or minus a little from pulling on the arms). Now, say you pull up with some weight on the offside (10 or 20 lbs?) That effectively increases your weight on the onside, so you get benefits on both sides. This may well be true even while seated, but perhaps not as significant.

Now, what I don't know is whether pulling up uses efficient body dynamics. Some studies indicate slower cadences are problematic, although others seem to indicate that varying one's effort is appropriate. It seems to me that the more muscles one uses, the better, within reason. Again, several studies seem to be doing the testing while controlling the output, so one would expect that pulling up would not show significant gains over not doing it for the same output. And, in fact, if you ride at 250W, one would expect the O[SUB]2[/SUB] consumption and Lactic Acid production to be pretty consistent over a range of styles. Your maximum effort may also be largely limited by your lung and circulatory capacity, although, at least for short efforts, one can go anaerobic (does that benefit from using more muscle groups?)

It would be fun to play around with some power pedals. Anybody want to bet the cost of a pair of Look Keo Power Pedals, or Garmin Vector pedals and recording equipment that I can't pull up in a standing hill climb? You get the pedals if there is no positive upward pull on the hill climb.

garysol1 

Ok

popeye

For years early on in each training ride I do one hard sprint only pulling up. If you have ever spent too much time on the front and find yourself in danger of not being able to hang with the tail you have that last shot to recover. You know the feeling, you are gassed and that tire in front of you is pulling away and you have no choice but to shift up a gear.

delcrossv

This thread is hilarious! Please continue.

Leinster

I would actually say the opposite. Your downstroke has to push against something. When out of the saddle on platforms, the maximum downforce you can apply is pretty much your body weight, and maybe some leverage off the bars. With foot retention you can add the upward power of your leg-lift to the downward pressure of your body weight, so 20-40lbs of pressure (pure guess) going upwards, plus the 185lbs of pressure going down, = great instantaneous power output.

No, this is not an efficient way of climbing a long steady slope. If I was on a 6% gradient for 5 miles, I would stay seated and spin, and most of my progress would be through the downstroke. But if that same climb occasionally ramps up to 12% for short 100m sections, I would more than likely get up out of the saddle and power through those sections. Using my upstroke as leverage against the downstroke.

Stucky

I wasn't interpreting the data (I didn't even look at it, actually)- I'm just going by what I have found to be the case from personal experience.

Hey, if it weren't so, then there'd be a ton of evidence showing that people are faster and more efficient with clipless....but that's not the case.

Carbonfiberboy 

I think I mentioned somewhere above that having strong legs is better? On a hill sprint, I can easily pull the rear tire completely off the pavement with a strong upstroke. In fact, I have to be very careful about weight distribution during a hill sprint. Too far back and I lose steering. Too far forward and I lose traction. It's kind of the same problem that newbies have bouncing in the saddle at high cadence, except in the reverse. However I don't find it advantageous to limit the travel of the up pull since it smooths out the acceleration a little, or maybe I need still stronger hip flexors. Be that as it may, my peak crank torque is more than doubled by my upstroke. See you at the top.

Flat sprints are completely different because of the windup, though foot retention is still mandatory. On a hill sprint I reach terminal cadence and stay there for the duration.

Anyone who argues that one is limited to the downforce doesn't know how to sprint. However it is surprising how many people never develop that skill. Besides strength, it is a skill that can be taught.

Ton of evidence? How about that every single road racer is using clipless. Too bad we can't arrange a demo. Believers all, then.

StanSeven

I think it's more that people starting clips, then clips with straps, and finally clip less. It's so intuitive that fastening feet to pedals make you faster and more efficient, nobody bothered to measure.