Riding tip

I wrote this a bit ago and posted it online at the V-Salon. I think it’s something good to keep in mind as we start to put in some time on the bike this spring. I know that when I keep this in mind I’m more efficient and more relaxed. Maybe it will be a benefit to you too.

 

 

Riding tip #3

I’d like to consider rider position when riding out of the saddle. There are a few key times when we tend to ride out of the saddle, climbing and sprinting. Following the “ride consciously” idea let’s think about how hold our bodies and use our strength and weight when we ride out of the saddle.

First let’s think about why we get out of the saddle. In most cases it’s to generate more power. By standing, we take the weight that would normally be sitting dead on the saddle and transfer it to the pedals. We are in effect standing on the forward pedal instead of pushing on it with our leg while sitting. It should be obvious that by doing this we can put much more weight and power into the pedal. It of course comes at an expense. This extra work we are doing takes more effort and raises out heart and breathing rates so our out of the saddle efforts can’t go on forever and this effort needs to be dosed out properly.

The main thing I want to talk about is fore/aft hip placement when standing and proper hip placement for climbing and sprinting.

 

Climbing — When we are climbing a steep section of road we often need to generate more power to get us up the hill so we stand to help put more weight on the pedal.  How we stand can make or break the deal. If we stand up tall and place our hips directly above our feet we are placing our weight over the forward pedal during its downstroke. We are in effect standing with all our weight over the forward pedal. This is a very good way to use our weight to propel us up the hill. The most common mistake is to place our hips too far forward and end up with too much weight on our hands. When you place your hips too far forward you start a negative feedback loop — with your hips forward of the pedal the more you push on the pedal the more weight you shift forward onto your hands and the less weight you are putting on the pedals. Since the weight on your hands does nothing to make you go forward it’s a waste of precious energy. You are in the end working against yourself and shifting the burden from the legs to the arms and getting no benefit. You’ve all seen folks do this. They are crunched over the bars, hips forward and elbows bent and their arm muscles showing the strain. You even see folks doing this with their hands in the drops to get even more weight on their hands. Think Thomas Voekler.

Why do we do this? It’s simple really. We stand up because it’s steep and hard to pedal. When we are standing our legs are doing a huge amount of work so to lessen the pain we move our hips forward and shift our weight to our hands. Our legs feel less pain but we make less power and go slower. It feels easier but we are going slower.

The proper hip position while standing climbing is to have the hips directly over the feet so you are standing with all your weight on the pedals. One way to tell of you are going too far forward is to monitor how much weight you have on your hands. If your hands are heavy on the bars and your wrists and forearms are straining it’s a good bet you are too far forward. You can test this by riding up a grade out of the saddle and then seeing how light your hands are on the bars. You should be able to have your hands just barely holding onto the hoods, fingers relaxed and forearms loose. Look closely at photos of the best pure climbers and they often have most of their fingers just dangling and they are holding onto the hoods with just their thumb and first finger. It’s as if you could take your hands off the bars and not much would change. This will result in that “dancing on the pedals” thing we see the best climbers do. It’s light and rhythmic and very efficient.

Sprinting — the hip position while sprinting is similar to climbing but with a twist. Sprinting has two basic phases. The start of the sprint where we need to accelerate as quickly as we can and then the top end, high speed finish of the sprint where rate of acceleration is lower but we need to maintain a higher speed.

During the transition from rolling along to sprinting we need to make huge amounts of power so we stand. Just like climbing we want our hips over the pedals to get as much power and weight onto them as possible. So we stand with our arms relatively straight to keep our hips back where they need to be. We make our billion watts for a short period and accelerate the bike in a big way to the point where we are now going fast. To maintain this high speed and add just a bit more we now need to spin the pedals as fast as possible. To do this we need to lower our aerodynamic drag and put our bodies in the best position to spin high RPMs. So we now need to bend our elbows and shift our weight forward. This lowers our frontal area making us more aerodynamic and transfers some weight from the feet to our hands making it easier to get a high spin going.

The most common mistakes I see when sprinting are that the two phases of the sprint aren’t dealt with. The rider either starts the sprint in the high speed spin position and can’t get the power down to accelerate or they start the sprint just fine but then don’t transition to the lower position for the high speed finish and end up pushing too much air at too low an RPM.

 

Time to make the donuts.

Dave

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