Smoothing out my pedal stroke.

mike306

Hi, am looking at ways to smooth out my peddling stroke. I have apower meter, and when on trainer road my power seems to be fluctuating quite a bit. What's the best way to go about training to smooth it out?

twotyred

Get to the power output you want to maintain and note your cadence then forget looking at the power and just try and maintain that cadence. Your power will still fluctuate a bit which is entirely normal and will happen no matter how smooth your pedalling is. Have a look at other people's workouts on TrainerRoad. I bet your variation in power isn't much worse than everyone else's.

AK_jnr

Change it to 3 second power and it will instantly smooth it. Lol. Mine still fluctuates but it is pretty much impossible for it not to.

markhewitt1978

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19757095#p19757095]mike306[/url] wrote:

Hi, am looking at ways to smooth out my peddling stroke. I have apower meter, and when on trainer road my power seems to be fluctuating quite a bit. What's the best way to go about training to smooth it out?

Power does fluctuate a lot. It's just how it is. That's why you have the likes of 3 second smoothing as the raw number is pretty meaningless.

Monty Zoncolan

Get a set of rollers and get used to riding on them at different speeds. By their nature you'll be encouraged to pedal smoothly and generally maintain a good style.

nigeldoyle

See whether your Power meter has options for "Pedal smoothness" and "Torque Effectiveness". If so then add these options to your Garmin or other head unit.

mike306

Cheers. That's good to know as I thought I was relitvly smooth, but the numbers where jumping around made me think other wise.

Hercules Rockefeller

Don't get too obsessed with smoothness unless you are getting nervy or overuse injuries/niggles. Working on overall fitness and power is the main key.

More time on the bike generally fixes technique problems

northcliff66

I have my Trainer Road set to three second smoothing. Even with that it still make a squiggly line.

However, I am on a Wattbike and if I reslly concentrate on the shape of the pedal power profile by using the Wattbike graph I can get the Trainer Road line to be very smooth. But it takes a lot of concentration as it is natural to stomp a little.

Whether the effort is worthwhile is another question entirely.

Alex_Simmons/RST

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19758721#p19758721]Hercules Rockefeller[/url] wrote:

Don't get too obsessed with smoothness unless you are getting nervy or overuse injuries/niggles. Working on overall fitness and power is the main key.

More time on the bike generally fixes technique problems

Good bike fit is a foundation.

cycleclinic

It does not have to fluctuates alot. I manage on hills to keep power in a 30w window. I.e if climbing at 300w I will hold 285w to 315w for couple of minutes. That is not alot of fluctuation. So trying to smooth more is pointless your legs are not an electric motor. So what if power varies little. Get over it and ride. If you are getting 100 variation over a few seconds then that is something you can address but just being more consistent. That happens with time.

redvision

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19757705#p19757705]Monty Zoncolan[/url] wrote:

Get a set of rollers and get used to riding on them at different speeds. By their nature you'll be encouraged to pedal smoothly and generally maintain a good style.

I agree. Rollers would help sort out any pedal stroke issues, plus give great workouts.