Another Pedaling Workout
Here's one I forgot about for improving your pedaling skills. If you have a favorite drill not listed here please let us all know in a comment.
Mountain biking. This isn’t a drill, but riding a mountain bike off road on hilly courses is good for improving pedaling skills. When you ride a mountain bike up a steep hill on a loosely packed surface such as dirt or gravel you must learn to keep even tension on the chain. If you mash the pedals the back wheel will slip and you won’t make any progress. Learning to keep even tension on the chain is just another way of saying learning to pedal smoothly and efficiently.
Labels: mountain bike, pedaling, speed skills
posted by Joe Friel @ 5:21 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Thanks very much for these. Fully agree with you and have pasted drills up in workout room to remind me to do them regularly.
One other thing I've found useful in this regard is the "Wattbike". Its got a polar display that lets you see the force applied through the pedal stroke in real time. Its very helpful with technique as it provides realtime feedback on how you are doing. It also measures right and left legs separately which can be interesting.
Forgot to mention in above another good thing about Wattbike is that offers new workout options just to keep things interesting.
e.g. is
- High power r/l: While doing L3/L4 intervals swap from right to left, doing 1 minute 60+% effort right leg, 1 minute 60%+ left leg, 1 minute 50-50 and continue to end of interval. Find this is useful not just for training but in long TTs I will from time to time favour one or other leg as find this reduces fatigue and relieves monotony a bit.
Hi Joe,
Here in the Netherlands we do beachbiking in the winter. When the sand is loose the trick is to keep the same tension on the chain and a high gear to keep as much speed as you can, to ´fly´ above the sand. Perfect pedaling efficiency training!
Keep up the good work!
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