Improvement Method on Pedaling Skills of a Road Bike

(Development of Training Equipment with Local Braking Applied to Pull-up Action)

Abstract

Pedaling techniques of road bikes play an important role in competitions. Pull-up action using the binding pedals is widely known as one of the essential pedaling one techniques to win the race. The previous research demonstrated that this skill will improve the efficiency of road bike pedaling. Meanwhile, there is a little research into learning method of the pull-up action. Therefore, this study developed an equipment to train pull up action by using local braking. A training method using the change of the environment, providing braking force to crank, during pull-up action was devised. This equipment consists of a braking disc and brake pads, and could be easily attached to road bike instead of a rear wheel by using quick release mechanism. Moreover, Breaking blocks are attached to the disc, and disc's rotation angle is synchronized with crank angle. The braking force will be provided by touching the blocks on the disc with the brake pads during the pull up action. The pedaling efficiency was calculated by measuring leg-power during the pull up action. This result indicated that providing local brake would lead to improvement of pedaling efficiency.