Originally Posted by
chip.hedler
About rider weight and maximum available power: it's not as if power is only available when pressing down on the pedal. Riders using toe clips and straps, or clip-in pedals, can counter the downward push of one leg with an upward pull on the opposite one. Good pedaling form is a lot more than simple push-pull, however. In other places on bikeforums.net you can find lots of discussions of good pedaling form and the degree of advantage provided (or not) by toe clips and straps or clip-ins. Yes, there are powerful riders who don't use them. I'm not one of them. Ever since learning about serious road biking, I've tried to make efficient use of all the muscles that come into play when trying to apply power all the way around. Evolution has put some constraints on the relative degree to which different muscles can be strengthened by training, but my own history of conditioning means that if I don't use toe clips or clip-in pedals I can't ride nearly as fast or as far. And riding without them doesn't feel as good to me, or as connected to the bike.
If the amount of body weight to counteract the downward push on the pedals were such a controlling factor, then the ranks of professional cyclists should be filled with compact-bodied super heavyweights. If lighter and heavier professional riders were all equally conditioned, then their strength-to-body-weight ratio should be roughly equal, ergo no penalty on these heavier riders when climbing, but on flats and downhills they should consistently leave the lighter ones in the dust. And race reports should be full of analysis and stats relating body weight to race results. That does not appear to be the case.
Originally Posted by
SurferRosa
Makes sense. I was wondering why Eddy Merckx rode a 35 lb Huffy in Mexico City. Now I know!
Chip, so how far and at what speed are you traveling with your straps/clips? Yesterday on the Huffy I went about 35 miles at 19mph with flat pedals. It would be interesting if you could back up your comments about foot retention with scientific data. The book Bicycling Science by Frank Roland Whitt says on page 63; "professional cyclists using toe straps did not use them to pull upward during the rising stroke.". And it also has a vector diagram showing the force put into the pedals during a rotation showed the cyclist although slightly, still pushing down on the pedal on the upstroke. So thinking and believing that toe-straps are an advantage is one thing, doing scientific testing for data is another. Also it takes more skill and muscle to keep a foot on a pedal that is going eighty or ninety rpm without straps than with them. It is a great book with 352 pages of lots of information and science that undermines most of what bicyclists believe on public forums about pedaling rates, pedaling style, pedal-crank length and dozens of other points.
As far as SurferRosa's comment about Eddie Merckx go, of course a pro is going to use a high-end bicycle, but that does not mean that they had to, and saying that they did is poor logic. Well-known physics and science plainly say that although a bike weighing twice as much will take longer to get to speed, it will take no more energy to keep it at that speed on level ground given the same size wheels and same bearing friction and wind resistance. In an hour ride, give or take, the small distance it takes to get up to speed for either bike will be almost no factor at all, especially since the bicycle is a small percentage of the total bike/rider weight.