Mister Cat wants his first bike.

[Forum Cat]

Doosh & Biggsy are right. It's a question of getting used to pedalling faster. It feels wrong at first: you want to push harder to speed up, but you'll probably find you actually go faster if you pedal a lower, easier feeling gear at a higher cadence. You get used to it quite quickly.

Thanks Bledlow (and others).  This is where talking to enthusiasts really helps.  Pedalling fast does feel wrong.  I will have to adapt my style as you have suggested.   

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Kim]

There's an element of personal preference to pedalling cadence.  The thing is, the only way to actually work out what you actually prefer is to become at least reasonably good at spinning quickly.  Otherwise your legs will just complain that they don't want to go that fast.

I suggest picking a gear that feels about right, then going down one or maybe two from there.  It'll feel like you're doing a lot of extra work for no benefit at first, but you'll soon get the hang of pedalling faster.  At some point you'll be limited by lack of a foot retention mechanism, but you should be able to make decent use of your gear range on flat pedals.

[Forum Cat]

There's an element of personal preference to pedalling cadence.  The thing is, the only way to actually work out what you actually prefer is to become at least reasonably good at spinning quickly.  Otherwise your legs will just complain that they don't want to go that fast.

I suggest picking a gear that feels about right, then going down one or maybe two from there.  It'll feel like you're doing a lot of extra work for no benefit at first, but you'll soon get the hang of pedalling faster.  At some point you'll be limited by lack of a foot retention mechanism, but you should be able to make decent use of your gear range on flat pedals.

Again, thanks for the advice.  I will do my feline best to follow it.

 

[Biggsy]

Except when accelerating, only a small amount of pressure is normally needed on the pedals to maintain your speed.  Don't think it's a waste not to press hard.  This might not apply to time trialists - who need to use a large amount of effort continuously - but I'm guessing you're not like them trying to complete your journey in absolutely the shortest time possible.

Normal cycling works best by pushing just slightly harder than is easy.  Then what's easy gradually gets faster as you get fitter.

[Forum Cat]

Then what's easy gradually gets faster as you get fitter.

 

[Forum Cat]

Oooh!

I have found out that if you peddle faster then the bike goes faster. 

 


It feels a little strange to peddle faster but the bike is certainly moving quicker and I have gears in hand for when my fitness improves.


Thanks for the advice guys.

 

[Kim]

As you get better at it, you might start to have problems with your foot slipping off the pedal.  Most of us use the unintuitively named clipless^[1] pedals - where a cleat on the shoe clips into a binding on the pedal.  This makes spinning fast *massively* easier, and means you don't have to maintain a constant downward force on the pedal to keep your foot in place (indeed, you can even pull upwards on the return half of the cycle).

Of course, it's not all simple.  Your foot being attached to the pedal can be a bit of a problem when you stop or need to get a foot down in a hurry on a slippery surface.  With practice the release motion becomes automatic, but everyone finds themselves in an undignified heap at the traffic lights in front of a group of schoolkids or an attractive MOTAS (or in a bed of nettles, if off-road) at least once.

However, you can still get a lot of the benefit with partial toe-clips like these:



They won't allow you to pull upwards like clipless pedals, but they will stop your foot sliding forwards off the pedal, without any clever release technique, and they'll work in any kind of shoes.  Recommended.



_{[1] A reference to the older solution of clips and straps, which are even more fiddly to use.}

[Bledlow]

+1 for half clips. I've had them on street/pub/short commute bikes & found them very useful & convenient.