Pedaling 101

First Draft

Let's quickly go over foot position on the pedal (article linked here) before we continue. It's important that you are able to use your ankles and calf muscles as part of your drivetrain, part of your pedal stroke. In order to do this, the ball of your foot should be centered over the pedal. This allows you ankles to come into play for absorbing impacts and to round out your pedal stroke with calf muscles. Meaning, with proper foot positioning you'll be able to take advantage of more muscle power (reducing overall fatigue) and reduce impact fatigue on your knees.

All right, the big question here is always, how fast do I pedal and when do I change to another gear? If your objective in riding is to putter around and get some outside air with no concern about exercise or excelling as a rider, I'd say the answer is, "do whatever you want". For everyone else the answer is the same, a faster cadence is desirable. In other words, faster pedaling is desirable. What is cadence? Simply a measure of how many times you pedal per minute, or in machine terms revolutions per minute (RPM). This is easy to measure over a short period of time by counting, more difficult to track over a long period of time but there are mountain biking computers that track cadence for you.

Professional athlete performance and studies show (and personal experience) that a higher number of revolutions per minute requires less overall energy to maintain the same speed, plus has advantages. Here is what I mean in plain words. While you are riding, count how many times ONE foot goes down in a pedal stroke for one minute. If the number is 30 or lower I can say for certain that you are either traveling VERY slowly indeed, or you are having to put a lot of EFFORT into each pedal stroke, which can cause pain in the knees. What you are doing is using primarily strength to power your pedal stroke. This more rapidly depletes your energy reserves with your major leg muscles because they are doing all the work, besides doing possible damage to various parts of your legs. Each pedal stroke is difficult because your torque is very low, each stroke of the pedal converts to too much motion of the back tire. Even worse, if your are already using a difficult stroke, when you hit a patch of sand or mud or any obstacles really, you won't have the necessary additional strength necessary to traverse the obstacle.

The alternative is to shoot for 50 to 60 (or higher) strokes per minute. Faster pedal strokes require quite a bit less strength effort to maintain, but more endurance. Using less strength effort means your using a combination of ALL of your muscles, sharing the load. A faster cadence also allows you to slow down for a time to traverse some obstacle (using strength) then kicking back up to speed quickly without having to change gears and with lessened energy depletion. Also, a higher cadence is a proven fat burner.

This requires practice in the art of 'spinning' which is covered in the Intermediate area, but you can start learning now. Chances are you won't be able to maintain a 60RPM pedaling style for a while, so shoot for a pedaling gear that fits these parameters:
it's comfortable keeping up with the pedals, but push it a little, your pedal stroke shouldn't be any more difficult than a quick walk
easy power, as I mentioned, if you are forced to slow down a little you should still have easy pedal power without changing gears
easy speed, the proper gear and pedaling cadence will allow you put on a burst of speed at any point since your not bogged down with a difficult gear
easy pedaling, practically doing nothing more than lifting and dropping your feet will do the work necessary to maintain speed over hard terrain

This is how riders such as myself can ride 20, 30 or even 60 or more miles in a single trip without stopping for a rest. We use a gear that is optimally selected for the terrain we expect. As strange as it sounds, the only time we are really exerting any significant energy is during the more difficult sections of the trail such as sand pits, climbs or rough areas. The rest of the time we are sitting back and basically relaxing.

Still not enough information to help you select the right gear? Try this. On your favorite trail there will always be a certain amount of difficulty that is representative of probably 80% or more of the trail. Then you mix in some of the tougher spots and that's your entire trail. Pick one of the areas that doesn't have any of the more difficult areas. You're going to ride for a while. Start in the easist gear you have, that's inside front ring, inside back ring, or first gear (when I say inside I mean towards the center of the bike between your legs). This gear is ridiculously easy to pedal and pedaling as fast as you can you won't get anywhere very fast. Switch up one ring in the back (right hand). That's a little better but not much. Go through all the back rings. I'm sure you'll start feeling more resistance from the pedals and getting more speed around fifth gear or higher. Next, switch to the front middle ring and the inside back ring. Go through ALL the gears and think about these things:
* am I going as fast (of slow) as I want to?
*can I go any faster without changing gears?
*are my feet moving to the rhythm of a typical rock or dance song (120 beats per minute) such as We Got the Beat (by the Go-Go's, it's the first example that came to me)
*if you brake to drop your speed, can you power right back up to speed again in less than ten or twelve strokes?
If the answer is 'yes' to these questions, you have found a good gear for the speed you want to travel and your leg strength. You should be able to maintain the desired speed for a longer period of time simply by pedaling a little faster than you might think necessary, you'll have more strength available when you hit a tough obstacle and will be have more torque when slowing down, without changing gears. And there will always be a burst of speed in you waiting to explode, again without changing gears.