Pedal Technique

Photo from: Bicycling.com
Perfect Pedal Stroke

With time trial season coming to a pinnacle in a couple weeks, this is a good time to be adapting to the different position.  Getting the most power out of your pedal stroke for a given heart rate is vital to being efficient.  Efficiency is a hidden gem of time trialing.  Here are a couple of exercises you can do on the bike to help you become more aware of your pedaling action and hopefully identify strengths and weaknesses.

Bicycling.com has a nice article about pedal technique with a great picture and description.  But how you approach this is another item altogether.


Focus on the technique and practice activating the muscles mentioned, here is a simple protocol to help you learn.

On your next easy/recovery ride, try these drills out:

10min: start at a low rpm gradually increasing to around 80rpms

10min - One-legged drills ~80rpms:  One minute each leg for 10 minutes.  Some recommend unclipping one leg at a time and doing these drills.  I think that works well if you are starting this for the first time, but only do this at low intensity and for less than two total minutes.  If you have done these before and know how to activate the muscles throughout the pedal stroke, stay clipped with both legs.  Let one leg go limp and let the other do the work.  This takes a bit more concentration and will help you isolate and separate one leg from the other in your mind.

5min light spin ~120+rpms, LOW POWER... remember this is a recovery/easy day.

To do these next two drills correctly you only need to think about one leg at a time in the pedal stroke, you'll want to choose a hard gear to help isolate the muscles and have enough time to think about what you're doing.  Watch your heart rate and make sure you stay below 80% of your Threshold HR.

10min - Upstroke only 40-50 rpms:  Try not to put any effort into the downstroke, focus on the ankling technique. At 6 o'clock toe down, feel your heel in the back of your shoe.  Feel the pressure in the saddle the hamstrings activating.  Around 11 o'clock flatten out your shoe and relax your quads. Remember you're not trying to pull your ankle out of its socket, if that is happening, you might have too much toe down.

10min - Downstroke only 40-50rpms:  Beginning around 11 o'clock think about dropping your heel and kicking a door open.  Drive down with your heel really feel your hamstrings tighten and activate.

All together now.

10min - Alternating Upstroke/Downstroke 50-60rpms: In your mind split this up by doing  Left-leg Downstroke/Right-leg Upstroke as one motion, then Right-leg Downstroke/Left-leg upstroke as another motion.  This is the real brain teaser.  It's like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach.  While one leg is doing the down stroke get the other to do the up stroke.

Homebrewed Nutrition

As much as I love real food, sometimes having a quick mix smoothie after a long ride is really nice.  Four to five hours of riding, the last thing I want to do sometimes is cook a meal.  Here is a way to mix up your own batch of recovery smoothie mix, with links and price breakdown.  Next time you purchase a large tub of sport drink mix, save the tub and mix your own into that.  Here are the things you'll want:

You will need these two appliances...
Coffee Grinder  and Digial Food Scale, if you don't have one it is a great investment for cooking and baking they are usually around $10-15 online.

And these Ingredients
You can probably find these things around town at a grocery store in the bulk foods section, here are some prices I usually pay here in Tucson.  I'll be doing the recipe in metric...

1. Soy Protein Isolate - if you can find this in the bulk foods here are some links to a company I buy from.
• 4lbs @ $22 + $4.50 S&H = $6.62/lb | $14.60/kg
• 44lbs @ 161 + 4.50 S&H = $3.76/lb | $8.29/kg <-- I get this and store it through the year.
2. Corn Sugar ~ $1.50/lb | $3.30/kg
3. Cane Sugar ~ $1.00/lb | $2.20/kg
4. Powdered Cinnamon, Ginger, and Vanilla ~ $1/oz | $35.25/kg
5. Salt ~ $1/lb | $2.20/kg

* If you have course salt and sugar you will need to put them in the coffee grinder to make into a fine powder.

This recipe comes off the back of the Cytomax Muscle Milk Naturals Vanilla which tasted good but $48+S&H for 32 servings (~$1.60/serving) is more than I would want to spend consistently.

Time to bust out the scale...

1. 515gm Soy Protein Isolate = $4.26 
2. 200gm Corn Sugar and 100gm Cane Sugar = $.66 and $.44  (remember to grind sugar to powder)
• 2:1 ratio of corn sugar:cane sugar yields the same calories from carbs just not a sweet.
3. 3gm Salt ~$0.01  (remember to add the salt to the sugar when you grind)
4. 16gm Ginger = $.56
5. 8gm Vanilla = $.28
6. 8gm Cinnamon = $.28

Total = $6.50 or $0.20/serving.  Serving size is 1/3 of a cup.

Put all ingredients into the tub and shake until mixed thoroughly.

If you like chocolate you might substitute vanilla with cocoa powder.  I haven't tried it myself, but the next batch I am going to see how it works.