RE: smooth out your pedal stroke *?*

Because you haven't any choice. The bike smoothes it out for you if you will
let it. It is counterproductive to try to hammer, particularly up hills. You
learn to adapt your cadence to that which the bike requires at a given
speed. I found The thing that requires most attention is to be prepared to
lower or raise your cadence to suit the road conditions. Everyone has a
natural cadence range say 70-80rpm and learning to extend that range to say
30-120 requires attention to pedaling smoothness. Any attempt to fight it is
very counterproductive. If you plot out the pedal effort v time you will see
that on a fixie the resulting curve takes on a lazy wave form. On a bike
with freewheel the plot takes the form of a series of sudden sharp peaks and
troughs in time with pedaling and coasting respectively.  
That's my experience anyway,
Roy  




-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of ernest breakfield
Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 2:26 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: smooth out your pedal stroke *?*

i almost hesitate to question this publicly as we hear this alleged 
benefit of riding fixed touted so much, but as the rider of a fixed gear 
bike i've always been curious why people seem to think that riding fixed 
will "smooth" ones spin.

     what i find is that riding fixed helps me work around the habit of 
being only able to make power primarily at my preferred cadence (drilled 
in from miles of riding as a tourist) and helps me learn how to make 
power at whatever cadence my speed might be forcing me to be at,... but 
since the motion of the bike (and thereby the pedals) *forces* a 
continued pedaling action i don't think it does nearly as much to help 
smooth out my spin as much as riding rollers (which also have the 
benefit of improving form, efficiency and handling skills).

     don't get me wrong; i love riding my old fixed-gear Ibis around, 
but think the benefits of riding fixed are more related to helping build 
power at different cadences and different ranges of motion than in 
smoothing ones stroke out.
     i think if you really want to "smooth" out your stroke, ride 
rollers!    ;-)


cheers!
e


On 05/Feb/11 22:22, Kelly Iniguez wrote:
> A friend of mine just ordered a fixie from this site - $395. for a custom
> build. Sure sounds good.
>
> http://www.bigshotbikes.com/index.html
>
> Come spring (spring is coming, isn't it?) your pedal stroke will be as
> smooth as silk.
>
> No relation, etc. just passing on a good deal.
>
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