I'm not what you would call an expert, but angles never really come into the equation for me. I have
read a lot about people having knee problems and the most common cure is to take the degree of
freedom provided by the ankle out of the question.
I actually ride the pedal just forward of my arch, 'waaay back on the ball of my foot. It feels
weird having my toes sticking out so far, but now I can concentrate on my pedalling.
As to how to spin.... I frankly don't. I blew my budget tricking out my Burley Canto with touring
gear and could not afford shoes/clipless pedals by the time I felt confident enough in my skill to
use them. So I mash with my Tevas. My impression that true spinning requires some sort of system to
let you pull on the pedals.
As a way to train for spinning as well as reduce repetetive stress injuries to my po' lil legs, I
play with my mashing technique. First, I was mashing like any beginner, straight forward. Then I
began occassionally concentrating on actually pushing down, which changed my angle a little bit and
changed the stress profile throguh my knees. Later, I played with a more scissors feel, using the
friction of my shoes on the pedals to push pup while the other was pushing down.
I began to realize that all of these techniques helped my endurance as well as reduce injury. Each
different style changed the muscle groups used a little bit. This is a somewhat less effective way
to shift muscle groups than the upwrong cyclists' trick of standing up to bring in the pinch
hitters, so to speak... but it worked a little. I could save my forward mashing for the ascents,
which is where I need my most powerful stroke.
Lastly, I realized that my legs have been trained all of their lives to push on pedals. I also
noticed that the knee naturally wants to fall with gravity and thus extend your leg into the pedal.
Couple that with the fact that all of these alternates required that I push with both legs just to
keep my feet from falling off (the Canto's BB is about the same height as the seat) and I know that
I may be concentrating on the wrong thing.
Lately, I've been concentrating on lifting the "off" leg and letting gravity and habit worry about
pushing the "power" leg. I find that I am using much less energy that way and getting almost as
much torque into the pedals. I am using a REALLY different muscle group and improving my endurance
even more.
With all of this playing around, I only mash forward on the steepest climbs.
You may notice that I have pushed forward, pushed down, pushed up and lifted toward. I think that I
may be training myself to use true spinning while improving my current riding capacity. What a deal.
Now if Erie, PA would just find a way to create a job for a mechanical engineer, I could get my recum-
butt employed and get me some of that clipless gear I can't wait to try out.
I hope this gives you some sort of insight, if only into what NOT to do =
Paul Podbielski
"Steve Christensen" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> OK, here's a really stupid sounding question. How do you pedal? What is
the
> proper technique?
>
> By which I mean, when you get to the bottom of the stroke, what should be
the
> angle that your foot makes with your calf? When I watch racers it looks
as if
> this angle is great than 90 degrees - or toe down. But I have heard that
the
> key to climbing can be to "drop the heel" at the bottom of the stroke.
>
> Why? And why just when climbing? Or is it a good thing to do all the
times.
> Just curious. If you drop your heel much of the time you would certainly
have
> to move your seat closer.
>
> Steve Christensen Midland, MI
