Originally Posted by
PeteHski
Exactly. If we pedal many thousands of miles over many years our pedal stroke is likely to become optimised automatically. At least if we pay attention to our bike fit. Steve Hogg makes a similar point in this blog post.
https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com...-what-is-best/
Steve Hogg quote from above link:-
“It [pedalling technique] is within your conscious control on flat roads at 25 km/h if you choose it to be, because the load is light and there’s plenty of time to ‘play’ with pedaling technique if you choose to. But who cares?
Riding at slow speed and light load has it’s place, but when the pressure is on and the wattage rises, don’t worry about your pedaling technique. Accept what comes naturally to you and refine it by doing it (riding) a lot. What results is the best technique for you, for who you are functionally and for the position (good, bad or indifferent) that you have on your bike.”
Great quote from Steve Hogg; thanks. The sentence I highlighted reminded me of the time that, during a race, I overheard a teammate complimenting a guy on another team for his smooth pedaling technique. When I asked him after the race what that was about, he said, "I could tell from how still his upper body was that he was concentrating on keeping his pedaling smooth. I figured, as long as he's wasting energy, why not try to get him to waste a little more?"
There are some older posters here who seem to believe sincerely that pedaling as smoothly as possible, a.k.a., "pedaling circles," is unmixedly beneficial. Even back in the 1980's, my teammate knew otherwise. One old guy (who quit posting in a snit a few months ago) insisted that these days all riders pedal at too low a cadence, what with their newfangled 10- and 11-tooth sprockets, while he serenely ignored the 30-tooth sprocket on the other end of their cassettes.
How I see this topic: our quads and glutes are much bigger than our hamstrings because evolution favored swift runners. Running entails an application of explosive force followed by a comparatively lengthy low-effort follow-through---hence our smaller hamstrings. No point in dragging around extra meat.
So I try to replicate that distribution of force while cycling: a brief burst of effort across the front followed by as long a recovery period as possible in the rest of the circle.
That, by the way, is why rollers are fine for zone 1 or maybe 2 efforts---where the smoothness that rollers require doesn't interfere with efforts to produce higher power, or at least not much---but are inferior to stationary trainers for anything else.
The people who ran the Colorado Springs U.S. Olympic Training Center evidently reasoned the same way, because their roomful of rollers was replaced with stationary wind-resistance trainers the year that those hit the market. I replaced my rollers with a Racer-Mate trainer pretty quickly back then, too.
Edit in anticipation of arguments from roller fanciers:
Yes, rollers can be equipped with fans and the like to add resistance. Sure, but stationary trainers, and especially smart trainers, are much easier to use for doing intervals. You concentrate on the workload without the distraction of having to balance and steer.
And no, rollers don't make you a better pack rider. Anyone who can ride 50 feet without falling over has all the balancing skill necessary to ride in a peloton. Steering a bike safely in a peloton is a matter of judgment, not balance.