Pedaling technique.

Pedaling technique comes up frequently in the fit station and is quite an important discussion to have as it can make your riding better. Or worse if the wrong approach is taken!

We have all seen the graph above I think. It illustrates which muscles get used in different portions of the pedal stroke. So how do we make best use of all these muscles while riding a bike? Let’s get into it some!

Good pedaling technique consists of a few things but the big hitter here is gross efficiency. Meaning how much of your effort actually moves you forward. Good technique also looks good and sounds good. Go watch the top 10 guys at a Pro XC race get up a climb. Listen and watch. The bikes shift well, the riders look smooth. Rear wheel traction is also maximized.

Somewhere along the line, clipless pedals came along, and folks began to tell riders these were better as they could forcefully pull UP on the pedals. More power, right? Not really. Humans are naturally much stronger at pushing down with their legs than pulling up or dragging the foot backwards in the “mud scraping” motion

The pedal stroke should reflect this. Think of how much weight you could push away from you with one leg. Lots! But then, you have to pull the box back to you with that leg...see where this is going? Trying to pedal in a circle with even force all the way around is simply not possible and if you can is going to massively overwork the hip flexors. There are also some really good studies on amputees riding with only one leg. They are experts at practicing “pedaling in circles”, BUT once you add a counter weight to the opposite pedal they get more efficient! 

We can also see that pedaling efficiency is the same in studies where riders were on flat vs clipless pedals. Can’t do much pulling up with a platform pedal at all. I’m not against any type of pedal here, the study simply illustrates my point. While on the platform pedal topic, practicing riding with flats can be good for technique because you can’t really do any of the bad habits!

One might be wondering how all this happens so many times an hour without much conscious thought. Reflexes, y’all! As one leg pushes, the other reflexively pulls up JUST the right amount .

Moving on, some of these are heard from well meaning riders and coaches:

Scrape the mud of the bottom of the shoe. Kick the foot over the top of the pedal stroke. Use XYZ muscle to push down. Spin a perfect circle. Make sure to pull up on the backstroke.

We have heard it all before and not much of it of use in my opinion. I call this movement micromanaging and it was shown in a study a few years ago to make pedaling efficiency WORSE. Know what worked? The rider’s self selected pedal stroke! Our brain is incredibly adept at producing the best motor pattern for a task and does so unconsciously. 

Oh and regarding ankle position pedaling. A bad fit can cause lots of toe pointing or heel drop while riding but unless you test the rider’s ankle strength and range of motion, you are pretty much guessing as to what they SHOULD be doing.

I will also try to help some here, as there are some things that can make your riding technique better…but first the caveat that we are all special and have our own preferences. Plenty of riders have told me things I disagreed with that “worked for them”. I usually say okay and move on.

• Cadence. Get better at riding at all cadences. 40 RPM up to 140. Sitting. Standing. The transition between. It all matters. Most riders sit and spin at 80 rpm and that is it! These explorations into more extreme cadences are best done in short efforts, maybe less than a minute. Optimal cadence is usually self selected…but if all you ever do is ride at 70-80 rpm your body really doesn’t have much chance to choose what is ideal.

• Shifting. Quit riding like a bull. Silent bikes are happy bikes. Plan your shifts and learn your gears.

• Stand up some. Get used to being smooth with standing climbing. This is best done at Tempo or Zone 3 power with cadence a good bit lower than while seated. Start with 30 seconds or so and add some more as it becomes easy.

• Training. Ride at a variety of power levels every week but most of your rides should be easy!

• Rollers. Riding rollers will quickly let you know how smooth you are. They are a bit dangerous starting out so be careful. 

• Strength and Balance Training. Make like Nino Schurter. Get in the gym.

• Relax. This is huge. Learn to relax while riding and you will be much more efficient. Quit overthinking your pedal stroke or trying to manipulate it. 

Mountain Bike Seat tube angles - a full explanation

A common trend over the past few years has been the move to steep seat tube angles on mountain bikes, especially in the Enduro / Trail Bike segment. This would mean bikes with 120-160 mm travel roughly. 

Historically, mountain bikes have featured on average a 73 seat tube angle and many are still really close to that. I think there are a few around with 72 degree STA but more common is the steeper ones around 74 degrees and plenty more examples around 75-78 degrees. For reference, a slack seat tube angle would be seen on a beach cruiser around 65 degrees or so and a very steep seat tube angle would be on a triathlon bike around 78-80 degrees. The higher number means your hips are further forward...think of a unicycle with the seat directly over the cranks, that would be 90 degrees. 

Before we go too deep here, be aware that there can be a virtual and actual seat tube angle on many bikes…the virtual one is what is most important. The diagram from Turner below is a great representation of this.

Anyway, I think the push towards steeper STAs have been in part driven by slacker head tube angles. The slack HTA makes for better stability and confidence on nasty downhill stuff but a wandering front wheel on climbs. By moving the rider further forward with the steep STA there is more control on climbs. 

Most bikes in this category also have dropper seat posts which means the saddle is out of the way on downhills so the angle of the seat tube doesn’t really matter all that much descending.  The primary time STA matters is during seated pedaling, which most riders do LOTS of. If you want to dive into this topic more, look over articles from Steve Hogg or Keith Bontrager on this.

Let’s go over a few practical details:

Respect the Design: If you already own a mountain bike, my best advice is just start with the saddle in the middle of the seatpost. Bikes are designed by very smart people and I like to stick to the intended fit and design without going too crazy. Big travel trail bikes will have the seat more forward than a cross country hardtail, there is no way around it. Don’t try to make the bike something it isn’t. Often riders with a short torso and long legs will like the seat moved forward some and riders with more normal proportions or a long torso and shorter legs will prefer the seat moved back for reasons mentioned in the Body Proportions section below. Bikes with a steep STA tend to feel too short in the reach from saddle to bar when seated and this is really just a compromise of modern geometry.

Terrain: Are you always climbing steep, then descending steep? A steeper STA is great here as you aren’t worried about flat ground pedaling all that much. A STA that is too steep will cause too much weight on the hands in hard singletrack riding and really make for some weird handling. Around here in the Southeast I’d lean towards more of a slacker STA due to how much seated pedaling we have. Also consider the wheelbase of the bike compared to your favorite trails. Bikes are getting longer and this isn’t always a good thing. 

Body Proportions: Everything else being even, a rider with a shorter torso will want a steeper STA! The shorter torso requires less distance for the hips to be behind the bottom bracket to counterbalance the position. Heavy feet, light hands ya know? Long torsos will usually demand a slacker STA to achieve this. Also, the rider with a more aggressive forward lean while pedaling will often like a touch slacker STA since the more horizontal torso position projects more weight forward onto the bars. As we talked about above, this is somewhat predetermined for you based on what bike you have.

Personal Preference: Go test ride some bikes! Decide for yourself versus letting Specialized or Trek dictate what YOU should be on. Riders that do lots of accelerating out of turns and out of the saddle climbing will be more sensitive to differences due to the frequent body position changes. Often, you will need to change your riding style a bit to suit the bike that you are on.

Bike Choice: In general, longer travel bikes have a steeper STA and a more upright position MOST of the time. There are exceptions to this, but I’ve noticed I like the steeper STA on my old Fuel EX but would HATE it on my new Procaliber hardtail. Full suspension bikes will often make better use of a steep STA than a comparable hardtail due to the suspension sag climbing which makes the bike even slacker.

Getting Used To It: Anatomy wise, the forward seat position means more quad usage and less hamstrings, glutes, and low back. This means the knee is further forward over the pedal spindle, which I’m not too worried about as KOPS is kind of an arbitrary relationship. This means the pedal stroke is a bit “knee dominant” which isn’t a bad thing in my opinion. 

How to adapt?

Firstly, make sure your seat height is correct. Too low and too far forward is BAD. Also doing some solid off bike training is a good idea. Goblet squats, step ups, and split squats are good options. The seated knee extension machine is solid also. Don’t be scared of it. Also regardless of what STA the bike comes with riders with long legs will need a more forward seat position vs the long torso crowd. Also riding a foot position a bit more forward on the pedal than usual can help a steep STA feel better. 

Hopefully this serves as a more objective guide to seat tube angles. It is way more than just accepting that really steep STAs are the future for everyone that rides trails. 

MOuntain bike bar sweep: all you need to know.

Let’s talk sweep for mountain bike bars. There are lots of options out now which is great as there is something for everyone!

First of all, let’s get it out of the way. People are different. I feel smart just saying it. There WILL be someone that disagrees with this and rides super sweep bars, flat bars, or drop bars on their mountain bike and love them. Keep loving them. 

Now, moving beyond “people are different” and “it depends”.

Let us assume here that bar width is close to what I consider natural, about the same width you would do pushups at and the bar drop and reach isn’t crazy. If you hold a bar in front of you about halfway to your chest you will notice your upper arms “bird wing” about 30 degrees out from your torso. Notice if you really force them you can bring them up to about parallel to the ground or if you force the elbows down with the bar in the same position you can maybe get them to 15 degrees out from your ribcage.

This means about 30 degrees upper arm away from torso is pretty normal. Now that the hand is in position we can talk about the angle of it. We want the wrist here in a position where it is balanced in ulnar and radial deviation or if you think about throwing a punch, the wrist would be straight….basically it would take an equal amount of load on either side of the thumb or the pinky to deviate the wrist. THIS is neutral.

Also you can turn your forearm vertical with palm toward you and hold a bar with equal weights on each end and see what angle the bar lands at to balance itself. For me this was about 8 degrees relative to the forearm.

Guess what? I ride an 8 degree backsweep bar. This gives a comfy and efficient position where force can be transmitted through the bars and through the upper extremity without undue stress on the wrist. 

I would encourage everyone to try this as you might like a bar close to 15 or 20 degrees sweep. I have heard folks mention holding pencils out in front of you and seeing how they point. I think this is a poor test since there is NO load put through the joint and the other relevant upper extremity angles aren’t the same as on a mountain bike. Yet again, if you think that test rules and mine is awful, that is cool with me.

There ya have it. I think the stock 9 degree sweep on most bars is really nice and a good starting point. If you want to try down to 6 degrees or up to the higher sweeps feel free to but beware as the sweep increases it typically forces a riders elbows down to their ribs giving less leverage in technical riding. This could be fine for a commuter or touring bike maybe. Shoulder injury status can also impact bar choice here so if things hurt...try some different setup tactics. Same for hand and wrist pain or numbness. If a normal setup isn’t working, try a less normal setup!

For most bars the logo near the stem should face forward and you can fine tune that rotation to your comfort but be careful not to roll them too far forwards as this tends to make people lock the elbows. I also check and document upsweep measured at the grip. This improves setup consistentcy. Hope that helps and I’m happy to answer any questions!