Climbing hills on a V20?

[Osiris]

After 400+ miles on my V20, I now feel completely at home on it, but there remains one important technique I have yet to get the hang of: climbing hills. I'm referring here to the climbing technique advocated by Jim Parker and others, which involves recruiting upper body muscles to produce more power at the pedals. I've watched the video on YouTube featuring Marie Parker, and I understand the principle involved. It's not difficult to grasp how pulling the pedal toward you by moving the handlebars could add some power to each pedal stroke, providing it's timed correctly.

In actual practice, however, it's difficult to see how this can be made to work. As anyone who has spent time riding a bicycle or recumbent knows, it takes only the tiniest movement of the handlebars to cause a pretty significant directional change. Just a bit of wrist movement is all that's required to execute 90 degree turns at intersections, and that's at a fairly modest speed. Move the handlebars that much while traveling at a high rate of speed, and you're likely to crash.

How then is it possible to move the handlebars any significant degree to the right and left while climbing a hill without initiating directional changes that will either send you off the road or into oncoming traffic? I've managed to do it at ~5 mph, but most "hills" in Florida are flat enough that I can easily climb them at 15-20 mph, and I certainly don't want to be weaving all over the place at those speeds. Even more puzzling is that this technique is advocated even for performing sprints, but the last thing I want when accelerating to 30+ mph is any side to side wagging of the front wheel.

Anyone care to explain this?

 

[LarryOz]

This is rather hard to explain, but the pulling on the bars is for just just milliseconds and rigorous and it is timed with the pedaling so that not much swerving is really involved. It is an acquired art, and I for one cannot say I am a master at is like Jim Parker is. I have even done it on a trainer when the front is fixed and seen the watts increase. Hopefully he can chime in for you and explain it better than I!

 

[DavidCH]

pulling on the bars

Great for short climbs and bridges but not for any length of time as it gives you tendonitis. Probably more susceptible the older you are.

 

[The Brook]

I agree with Larry, the timing is important, and seems to come with repetition. When I ride on a level road, using a fair amount of effort, I will pull on the left handlebar of my Freerider just as I'm pushing on the left pedal. I's not a very hard pull, just enough to counteract the steering effect of my pedaling effort, but when I climb, I notice that with the increased effort, I'll pull harder, as my pedal strokes tend to want to steer the bike harder. I've been getting better at estimating how much effort to put out to counteract the increased pedal steer.
I wonder if the wide handlebars on my Freerider make this easier or not, I have no other Cruzbike to compare with.

Denis

 

[Osiris]

This is rather hard to explain, but the pulling on the bars is for just just milliseconds and rigorous and it is timed with the pedaling so that not much swerving is really involved. It is an acquired art, and I for one cannot say I am a master at is like Jim Parker is. I have even done it on a trainer when the front is fixed and seen the watts increase. Hopefully he can chime in for you and explain it better than I!

That's puzzling, because a trainer prevents precisely the sort of movement required to make this technique work. The principle behind it is quite easy to understand: with a MBB, pulling the handlebar to the left has the effect of pulling the right pedal towards you. If you're pushing on the right pedal at the same time, then you are adding the work done by your upper body muscles to the work done by your leg muscles. But for that to be possible, the front end has to rotate at the BB, else pulling the handlebar to the left would not have the effect of pulling the right pedal toward you. If you saw an increase in power output while doing this on the trainer, the likely explanation is that when pulling/pushing on the handlebars, your leg muscles were putting more power into each pedal stroke without you realizing it.

 

[Osiris]

I agree with Larry, the timing is important, and seems to come with repetition. When I ride on a level road, using a fair amount of effort, I will pull on the left handlebar of my Freerider just as I'm pushing on the left pedal. I's not a very hard pull, just enough to counteract the steering effect of my pedaling effort, but when I climb, I notice that with the increased effort, I'll pull harder, as my pedal strokes tend to want to steer the bike harder. I've been getting better at estimating how much effort to put out to counteract the increased pedal steer.
I wonder if the wide handlebars on my Freerider make this easier or not, I have no other Cruzbike to compare with.

Denis

Yes, but what you're describing here is no different from the normal pull/push on the handlebars required to keep the front wheel tracking in a straight line whenever you ride the bike. To keep the front end from weaving, you should ideally pull on the handlebar just hard enough to counteract the steering force of each pedal stroke; the harder the pedal stroke (as when climbing or accelerating), the harder you'll need to pull/push on the handlebar to counter-balance this force.

But this is not at all like the technique explained by Jim Parker and others, which requires pulling the handlebar so far that you are in effect shortening the distance from the pedal to your hip. Doing that will necessarily cause the front wheel to flop from side to side with each pedal stroke, which would at anything greater than walking speed, cause sudden and dangerous directional changes. Here's Jim's video demonstrating the technique:

 

[Suz]

It’s a matter of practice. It works very well and I don’t think I could climb a hill without using this technique now that it’s engrained in my riding. When I first started practicing this I had to mentally focus on the push/pull action between handlebar and peddle stroke. You don’t pull harder than the force you’re exerting on the peddle. If you did that you would swerve all over. If you can find a hill, try it and I think you’ll pick up on the rythym with practice.
I think the slow motion of the film is a little deceiving because the side to side motion looks more pronounced that it would look at regular speeds.

 

[Osiris]

It’s a matter of practice. It works very well and I don’t think I could climb a hill without using this technique now that it’s engrained in my riding. When I first started practicing this I had to mentally focus on the push/pull action between handlebar and peddle stroke. You don’t pull harder than the force you’re exerting on the peddle. If you did that you would swerve all over. If you can find a hill, try it and I think you’ll pick up on the rythym with practice.
I think the slow motion of the film is a little deceiving because the side to side motion looks more pronounced that it would look at regular speeds.

If you look at the portion of the video shown at normal speed, you'll see that Marie is in fact swerving all over the place when using this technique. Even at almost a walking pace, she's unable to hold a straight line. At sprinting speeds, unwanted steering inputs like that would have disastrous consequences.

 

[Brad R]

If you are pedaling 60 rpm, the oscillation frequency would be 1 Hz. So the time near peak angle would be less than 250ms at a time. On dry pavement, some people can easily maintain general direction and stability with small motions. It is an acquired skill.

I can’t do the stand up and pedal a DF bike while flopping it back and forth to maximize torque on the downstroke, but I can do the movement of the front wheel of my T50 while seated and pulling my torso forward off the seat back. I actually use this two ways.

If in a gear that is too high, I let the pedal stroke push the wheel in its natural direction to reduce peak load on my knees. I find that I lose less speed cresting a hill if I am already in a higher gear as the grade reduces. (I guess one could do the same thing with a DF if the flopping were time so that the top of the bike was going to the right when the right pedal was going down. This might help with knee pressure if pulling on the handlebars to allow a higher than body weight force on the pedals.)

If I am in a lower gear, I can change the timing to put more peak force into each pedal stroke. However, I am not convinced that this helps me much. I think that most of my benefit for pulling my torso up is from better breathing and from recruiting different muscles. If the hill is too long, I run out of power and lean back and spin the rest of the way up.

You need to ride your bike and figure out what works for you. Everyone is different and everyone finds different methods that are comfortable and effective for himself or herself.

Have fun.

 

[Osiris]

If you are pedaling 60 rpm, the oscillation frequency would be 1 Hz. So the time near peak angle would be less than 250ms at a time. On dry pavement, some people can easily maintain general direction and stability with small motions.

That would of course depend on the amount of handlebar movement and your velocity. It's one thing to keep the bike reasonably under control using this method at extremely low speeds (as shown in the video), but moving the handlebars at high speeds results in drastic changes in your position on the roads or trails, as I discovered before I got acclimated to the Vendetta. The problem becomes especially acute when you change gears and your pedaling is suddenly out of sync with your handlebar movement.

 

[benphyr]

@Osiris,

Not sure how my conversion kit would compare with your V20, setup, size of rider, etc. etc. however here is my two cents. My experiences says that as I was learning I swerved lots and overcorrected lots and it was close to dangerous when I first got out of the parking lot learning zone. Then I practiced for quite some time and having read about Jim's arm assist thought I would put it to use and found (like you) that it put me back near or into the danger zone of lack of control. Then after mostly giving up but still with minimal arm movements just to stabilize and oppose the leg motions I found that my pedal stroke became less of a distraction, less of a swerve. Then I put my clipless pedals and shoes on and clipped in. The difference was immediately noticed in a good way, the pedal stroke smoothed significantly and I wished I had done that earlier. Then I noticed that the arm motions slowly increasing and giving a noticeable boost for short efforts. This whole process was over the course of 2 years of spring, summer, fall commuting of 15km (10miles)/day.

My feeling is that the arm motion is not so much a straight addition of power as much as it is a way to involve all of the stabilizing muscles so that the leg can be pushing fully.

A similar comparison for both cruzbike and diamond frame bike is between riding with hands on handlebar and riding no-hands. When riding no hands it is difficult to have the same power as with hands on handlebars. The cruzbike may feel as though the foot is pushing on the pedal and pressing the lower back into the seat-back but when you add the stabilization from the arms (once all of the pathways have been ingrained in the brain) that locks in the position of the hip, then the leg can really push.

Or to look at it another way, a leg press machine in the gym has handles on either side of the seat. Being as I am a lightweight I noticed that even if I don't need to hold onto the handles to keep me centred left to right, I can push more because I can hold my main pushing muscles (legs) in the right position. Otherwise I lift myself right off the chair.

That is what I experience. Who knows, you may find that what is dangerous now may become an advantage later on once technique, training, and practice have added up. I don't know, but I'm thinking if a good car driver was given an Indy car to drive on the street that they would find it a bit twitchy and be a danger to themselves and others. But if they learned to drive, took race lessons, completed a few amateur races it might be a pretty sweet ride. Your setup and V speed machine are quite different to my conversion kit and Q but I hope that my insight is helpful.

Cheers,
Ben.

 

[Suz]

If you look at the portion of the video shown at normal speed, you'll see that Marie is in fact swerving all over the place when using this technique. Even at almost a walking pace, she's unable to hold a straight line. At sprinting speeds, unwanted steering inputs like that would have disastrous consequences.

Nope. Just try it.
Key word is unwanted. You never pull more than the amount you’re counterbalancing with your legs/body. Therefore those movements are purposefully executed, not unwanted.
Benphyr may have stated it more graciously - try it, you’ll become accustomed to it and then understand it.
Good luck and keep those miles coming.

 

[bladderhead]

Thanks for this thread. I have started doing it, and it works. The steering effect is negligible. Suz is right.

 

[Osiris]

Nope. Just try it.
Key word is unwanted. You never pull more than the amount you’re counterbalancing with your legs/body. Therefore those movements are purposefully executed, not unwanted.
Benphyr may have stated it more graciously - try it, you’ll become accustomed to it and then understand it.
Good luck and keep those miles coming.

I can't help but think there must be a serious miscommunication here. When riding in a straight line, ANY axial deviation of the front wheel is unwanted. You want that front wheel to remain perfectly straight, not flop from side to side. This is what I endeavor to do when just riding the Vendetta at a relaxed pace: I time my arm movements to exactly counteract the steering forces produced when pedaling, which ensures that the front wheel remains straight (no wheel flop). After hundreds of miles of practice, I've mastered the technique to the point where there is no observable wheel flop when pedaling, just as when I'm riding a recumbent with a fixed boom.

But this has nothing to do with the climbing technique outlined in the video above. In that context, the front wheel absolutely HAS to move from side to side, else there is no mechanical benefit to this technique. The video clearly shows the front wheel flopping from side to side; it's impossible for it not to if you're moving the handlebars.

Now, where the confusion seems to occur is where you say above that the side to side wheel movements are "purposely executed, not unwanted." The first part of this statement is true, but the second part is false. Yes, Marie is deliberately moving the handlebars from side to side, which necessarily results in wheel flop. But that doesn't mean that the wheel flop itself is something she (or any rider) wants. It isn't; it's just an unavoidable consequence of moving the handlebars. If, hypothetically, she could move the handlebars from side to side without the wheel flopping from side to side, then that would be ideal: she could then use this technique to assist in climbing, but without the unwanted result of having the bike wander all over the road, as shown in the video. Unfortunately that's not mechanically possible. Whenever you move the handlebars, your direction of travel will necessarily change. That isn't desirable, but there's no way around it.

 

[Osiris]

@Osiris,

Not sure how my conversion kit would compare with your V20, setup, size of rider, etc. etc. however here is my two cents. My experiences says that as I was learning I swerved lots and overcorrected lots and it was close to dangerous when I first got out of the parking lot learning zone. Then I practiced for quite some time and having read about Jim's arm assist thought I would put it to use and found (like you) that it put me back near or into the danger zone of lack of control. Then after mostly giving up but still with minimal arm movements just to stabilize and oppose the leg motions I found that my pedal stroke became less of a distraction, less of a swerve. Then I put my clipless pedals and shoes on and clipped in. The difference was immediately noticed in a good way, the pedal stroke smoothed significantly and I wished I had done that earlier. Then I noticed that the arm motions slowly increasing and giving a noticeable boost for short efforts. This whole process was over the course of 2 years of spring, summer, fall commuting of 15km (10miles)/day.

My feeling is that the arm motion is not so much a straight addition of power as much as it is a way to involve all of the stabilizing muscles so that the leg can be pushing fully.

That may very well be the case. Sometimes a technique works, but not for the reason we think it does. And sometimes we think a technique works, when it actually doesn't. For example, one of my frequent riding partners rides a Bacchetta CA2, just like the one I used to own. She is convinced that pulling on the handlebars increases her pedaling power in sprints and during steep hill climbs. I've tried to explain to her that this makes no sense from a mechanical standpoint, because pulling with your arms does nothing to increase the power produced by your legs. Nevertheless, she insists that she can "feel" the increase in power, so it must be happening. Now unlike her, I've been using a power meter for many years. My Bacchetta was equipped with one, so I decided to try her technique and see for myself. As you might already have guessed, pulling on the handlebars produce no increase in power output. Not one bit. But what I did notice was that pulling on the handlebars causes your back muscles to contract, and that creates the sensation that your legs are pushing harder. It's an illusion of course, but now I understand why she thinks this technique is actually producing some benefit. That's why I'm extremely skeptical of various claims I've heard over the years from other bent riders that this technique or that technique creates more power. I've tried them all, and the verdict rendered by my power meter is that they don't work. So unless I see some hard evidence that can be objectively evaluated and the results duplicated, I see no reason to believe them. We've discussed the merits of Jim's climbing technique on another forum, but the problem is that it would be very difficult to test with anything resembling scientific accuracy. One thing I've suggested is to put a Cruzbike on a trainer which sits on wheels or ball-bearings so that the trainer can move freely over the floor's surface. That way, it would allow the rider to swing the boom from side to side when pedaling, and determine from the power readout whether this technique actually boosts power output. There would be some procedural problems in using this method to gather reliable data, but I can't envision another experiment that could be performed under such controlled conditions.

 

[Osiris]

Lets try it again looking at it from a different point of view. First tell this to Lance because if you look at his climbing he is all over the road and if you look closely you'll see his wheel is not maintaining that perfectly straight line you seek. It clearly wobbles back and forth some. I suppose he is lucky he didn't end up with disastrous consequences.

In that segment of the video, Lance is climbing a steep grade. He's not sprinting at a high speed, and he's doing it under controlled conditions where he has the entire road available to him. In a recent 1000 meter sprint, I averaged 34.7 mph, with a top speed of 37 mph. If my front wheel had been wagging from side to side at those speeds, I don't have to tell you what the result would have been.

Now carefully observe Marias climbing after 10 plus days of RAAM in the Appalachians. Notice her swerving comes as a car is approaching from the rear which will eventually pass her. It isn't uncommon for people to do the swervie thing as danger approaches like this. I think it is very possible she is simply moving over to the side of the road.

It's as if we're watching two different videos. The swerve over the line you mention is only the most obvious example, but it's not the only one. Her wheel flops occur throughout the video. If you saw the average person riding a bicycle like that, the natural conclusion would be that she's either a beginner rider, or that she's too exhausted to maintain control of the bike. In fact, had you watched me ride the Vendetta for the first time, you would have seen my front wheel wandering all over the place in just the same way.

A lot of long term riders claim to get additional power using the push pull method some don't. It also seems to work for me, although like standing up on a DF, I can only maintain this technique for short periods of time. For me it is a rhythmic type thing and works best at certain power/ speed ratios and not really helpful/needed at fast speeds. At those cadences I can't seem to sync the feet to arms effectively. Best advice I've seen yet is from Suz where she says "just try it". Give it an honest chance and see what happens.

As I mentioned in the opening post, I've already done it. It's easy to do at ~5 mph, even on a narrow bicycle trail. Do that at much higher speeds however, and you'll run right off the pavement. Remember that in the video, Jim isn't just advocating this technique for very slow climbs; he's also advocating it for sprints. Now I'm not taking any position on whether this method actually produces additional power. That's a separate question. It might well be the case that Jim's analysis is completely mistaken, as someone else has taken pains to explain in a response to his video, but I'm setting that question aside for the time being. I'm concerned solely about using the technique in sprinting, where the speeds become so great that even minor handlebar inputs can have dangerous consequences, and because of that, I can't envision this technique having any application.

 

[ElyDave]

That may very well be the case. Sometimes a technique works, but not for the reason we think it does. And sometimes we think a technique works, when it actually doesn't. For example, one of my frequent riding partners rides a Bacchetta CA2, just like the one I used to own. She is convinced that pulling on the handlebars increases her pedaling power in sprints and during steep hill climbs. I've tried to explain to her that this makes no sense from a mechanical standpoint, because pulling with your arms does nothing to increase the power produced by your legs. Nevertheless, she insists that she can "feel" the increase in power, so it must be happening. Now unlike her, I've been using a power meter for many years. My Bacchetta was equipped with one, so I decided to try her technique and see for myself. As you might already have guessed, pulling on the handlebars produce no increase in power output. Not one bit. But what I did notice was that pulling on the handlebars causes your back muscles to contract, and that creates the sensation that your legs are pushing harder. It's an illusion of course, but now I understand why she thinks this technique is actually producing some benefit. That's why I'm extremely skeptical of various claims I've heard over the years from other bent riders that this technique or that technique creates more power. I've tried them all, and the verdict rendered by my power meter is that they don't work. So unless I see some hard evidence that can be objectively evaluated and the results duplicated, I see no reason to believe them. We've discussed the merits of Jim's climbing technique on another forum, but the problem is that it would be very difficult to test with anything resembling scientific accuracy. One thing I've suggested is to put a Cruzbike on a trainer which sits on wheels or ball-bearings so that the trainer can move freely over the floor's surface. That way, it would allow the rider to swing the boom from side to side when pedaling, and determine from the power readout whether this technique actually boosts power output. There would be some procedural problems in using this method to gather reliable data, but I can't envision another experiment that could be performed under such controlled conditions.

Put the bike on rollers?

 

[Osiris]

Put the bike on rollers?

Rollers only produce a small amount of resistance. You would need something that duplicates the amount of resistance normally encountered in hill climbs to see if wagging the handlebars actually increases power output. You could try using an actual hill, but my experience has been that variables like irregularities in the pavement, subtle changes in grade, headwinds, tailwinds, etc., will contaminate the results.

 

[murmur]

We've been over aspects of this topic before, and I did some analysis (which Dr Parker said he largely agreed with) showing the level of steering movement you'd need in order to get 6.5% of your power from your upper body, given the sample, but representative, MBB bike geometry. It's plus and minus 4.76 degrees. Less than that and you get less than 6.5% power from your upper body, more than that and you'll get more, given the bike geometry that was chosen. As long as your steering angle is oscillating ±4.76 degrees, and the oscillation is timed correctly with your pedaling, that's what you'll get. This is assuming your butt isn't moving around in the seat appreciably.

How much serpentine motion does this cause in the bike's path? At 5 mph, it's around ±0.152 feet, or ±1.83 inches. (If anybody cares how I arrived at that number, let me know and I'll edit this post. It takes some 'splainin.). Why "about" that much? Because there isn't necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between steering oscillation and path deviation, because the bike will roll a little bit in synch with the steering oscillation. But ±2" is probably a good maximum at 5 mph. At 20 mph, it's 4 x 2" = ±8 inches; i.e. it's not gonna work, do not try this, don't say I didn't tell you.

 

[Osiris]

Furthermore if 5 mph and 34 mph are your test climbing speeds then you are missing the sweet spot bigly. If you are climbing at 5 mph you waited too long to start and if your climbing at 37 mph, --well you should stop pedaling and coast up the rest of the hill.

Just a small correction here. I never said anything about climbing a hill at 37 mph. I was talking about sprinting, like it says in the title of Jim's video.