Improve the Efficiency of your Pedalling

One of the trickiest things to teach yourself is a proper fluid spin on your bike pedals and developing the best cadence. These are things that you are not going to get right overnight, and will take hard work and lots of practice. It helps to have a proper road bike fitting and expert support, but with focus, once you get it right, you could notice a real difference in your style, comfort, power and energy levels. You can clearly see the difference between a cyclist with experience and a beginner just from the pedalling style they have alone. No pedal mashing, weaving and such. Just a smoothness in their motion, with a still upper body, knees tucked under and maximization of the 3 o'clock position for power. Here is a look at what you can do to boost the efficiency of your pedalling.

Identifying if you are not pedalling efficiently

First of all, you need to ride your bike and analyse your current pedalling. Put your bike into a gear that is comfortable to ride in on a straight and flat road. Relax and focus on different areas. Are you rocking your hips as you pedal? This might mean the saddle height is not right. Are you experiencing foot arch, ankle, back or knee pain? This is either poor technique in pedalling or bad cleat alignment. It is very important to have an excellent bike set up to develop the best pedalling technique. If you cannot get a bike fit done in person, consider finding experts that offer a comprehensive virtual bike fit. You will notice straight away your comfort level is up, injuries are down, and you are cycling better than ever.

Three pedalling styles

There are different pedalling styles but they group into three main ones, and which you use is just a personal choice, there has been no evidence one is better than the other. These styles are;

1. Toe dipper – The cyclist points their toes even on the downstroke and under load.
2. The average – The more common style where the foot is flat to the pedal with just a little dip of the heel on the downstroke.
3. Heel dropper – Between 12 and 6 o'clock there is a lot of heel drop and then it rises slightly. Many people cycling like this have more ankle movement.

Cycling cadence

Cadence is the rate at which you pedal so the number of revolutions you have per minute. Athletes and professional cyclists will have a higher cadence rating. To achieve better cadence as well as a proper road bike fitting you need to ride in the correct gears and make your gear changes are smooth. For athletes, they aim for a range between 80 and 100 RPM. There are a bunch of reasons when you are competing to reach this kind of cadence, it improves fitness, increases blood flow and you use a different set of muscles that are more resistant to fatigue.

Conclusion

If you are doing things like a virtual bike fit, improving your pedalling and training for personal achievements, you do not have to worry as much about cadence. But training at different cadences will be good for you.

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