n crowley said:Why do you mention a 210 mm crank length, you will still be using a 170 mm crank and you will be using the same power generating muscles minus your ankle and calf muscles. While out walking today I saw a child using this arch cleat position with a fast cadence and it appeared very choppy and far from a smooth style of pedalling. As I understand it, the problem with using this arch cleat set-up is that you are restricted to only one style of pedalling when in reality there are four possible other effective ways to power the pedals with ideal times and places for all four. The fatal error made by all pedalling researchers is in underestimating the capabilities of the bodies muscles when applying power to the cranks from a seated position and so instead they concentrate on changing equipment or its set-up instead of trying to improving pedalling technique. Contrary to what you and all cycling experts believe, there does not have to be a dead zone around 12 o'c, it can be replaced with the same power input as that at 3 o'c and the ankle and calf muscles are a vital part of this operation. Sorry if I put a damper on your idea.
Crowley, there is some misunderstanding which I will be happy to clearify.
First, I am not a "pedal researcher", in fact, as a shoe-maker, I have to put up with so many various pedal systems industry claims to be necessary although all a pedal has to do using my position is provide a stable basis to the shoe that engages to it.
The area around Dublin is pretty flat, I know. However from my time as a pro, racing the Tour of Ireland I remember some beautiful spot South of Dublin called 'Cill Mhantain', better known as Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains. Although there are no steep gradients, I trust they will give you some idea what bio-mxc² is all about when you go up and down there on the bike a couple of times. You see, watching kids on the bike as a pedestrian can be tricky, so better go on the bike yourself and practice what you are talking about.
For it appears to me that what you have been looking at is something which insiders labelled 'System Herbert'. Dieter Herbert, a German I never had the pleasure to meet in person nor hear about his ideas before I had applied for my 1st patent, ived or still lives in Sweden applied for Patent's Grant, claiming the heel would be the best point for cleat attachment as this very heel is a direct extension of the knee. Therefore, he claimed, there was no need to use the calves to stabilise the foot as a lever during downstroke any more (see: DE19956413A1 of November 24th, 1999). Read well, an 'A1', an application, not a patent! He would have had the chance to convert his application into a patent on May 31st 2001, instead he refrained from doing so, so in fact doesn't have a valid patent in this field altogether
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Why? Because in the meantime he learned from another German, me, that he had obviously chosen the wrong area on the shoe for his claims. Of course the heel is the direct extension of the knee and calf muscles would not need to stabilise the foot acting as an extra lever during downstroke any more, therefore use up less oxygen necessary for muscle contraction. But, and this is decisive, anything above 40, 50 rpm would make it impossible to keep the bike under reasonable control due to rocking up and down on the saddle. You need not be an expert to imagine what would happen when a rider gets moving on the flat, sprints or just gets out of the saddle with his setup, do you?
Like a dino of ancient times he would slowly stagger rather than dance on his pedals. This is where kids, usually equipped with one single gear but natural experts of biomechanics altogether, overdo at times. Some would put their heels onto the pedals in their initial attempt to have no fatigue at all in the perigenual region so to fire all their still unrestricted hip power onto the pedals. Once they accellerated speed, they start bouncing because the movement can't be balanced with the help of the calve's subtle but firm counterbalance action. What has been exaggerated with the cleats under the ball-of-the-foot, thus leaving a huge lever to be controlled by comparatively tiny calf muscles, with 'system Herbert' found its antipode and riders like Susanne Ljungskog, her boy-friend Klaus Johansson or Madeleine Lindberg proved their own coach Dieter Herbert wrong when they would simply refuse to move their feet to where he thought it might be ideal.
Like the wheel, cycling has not been developed on the drawing board but in practise and most improvements came from the sports within, not from smart engineers who thought they could violate rules of applied biomechanics. But be careful, also the other way round is not always the Golden Gate to truth. In their attempt to add as much force to their stroke, riders have deliberately shifted their cleats further front. While this feels very dynamic, the costs in terms of oxygen supply, muscle fatigue and bad leverage are just too high I claim. Keep in mind that in old days no accurate powermeter had hit the market and cycling was still in the hands of witty soigneurs and doctors in their quest to claim their thesis, so-called 'Golden Rules', which nowadays would just melt like chocolate in the riders' jersey pockets on a hot summer day.
It is a personal tragedy that Mr. Herbert still seems to believe I had stolen his ida and eventually received Patent's Grant instead of him. When I got in touch with Susanne and Klaus, I found them close to where power transmission a n d counterbalance was perfect, so a few modifications only and the scene was set for a tremendously successful career, leading to two consecutive Worlds and many other good results. I won't blame an athlete who doesn't want to reveal his secrets which he knows make him superior to his opponents, do you? So after her first attempts to verbally highlight a major reason for her success on Swedish TV, Susanne kept quiet. The fact that until this very day, even self-declared experts did not even recognise why she has been enjoying riding her bike so much is because she is not rocking forth and back on her bike, not puffing and panting, not showing signs of fatigue pumping with her torso, doing push-ups with her arms or crawl in an attempt to get pain off her thighs, I'd say. Or do you think it is the buying power of the shoe industrys' adds in the cylcing magazines?
There was an ad on the American Triathlete when triathlon-heroine Paula Newby-Fraser would become close runner-up to leading World Champion Natscha Badmann at IRONMAN CALIFORNIA'01, showing her riding flat-out but all smiles in midfoot-position. In those days, the cheering triathlon community didn't get the message, instead her husband and coach Paul did and would write me a message, thanking me for the "simple but effective changes" that had improved his wife's performance from scratch. In fact, my solution was a simple but effective way to immitate what she had been using years before when she established a superb record on the bike split in Kona. Back in those days, Paula had been taking advantage of some sort of a heavy but effective self-extending crank setup which would help her to apply all her positive forces without afterwards getting off the bike and not being able to run. In opposite to what she had been taking advantage of in those days, now with our shoe there was no more detrimental weight gain involved, in fact, a shoe well below 200 grams each! This is why when explaining the juxta-position of the foot during down-stroke, due to my poor knowledge of the English language I speak of a 'virtually extended crank arm' or '210mms'. I know as well as you do that while the crank remains perfectly at its spot and doesn't change its length in our setup, its the shoe and the bio-mxc²position of the foot on the pedal which makes the (different) music altogether.
Sorry Crowley, apart from some toe-overlap with short frames when cruising on the parking, I can't find the fatal damper for my idea, so say hello for me to the 'Sky on Earth' when you go past this beautiful spot on your bike in arch position one day, will you?😉
