Flat pedal technique. Once more, with feeling (and pics)

The flatter levers thing feels weird to start with but it helps so much. Not just to stop you getting that feeling of going over the bars but I think it reduces arm pump a lot, I never really get it any more.

yea.. I had no arm pump whatsoever in the alps last year

Regardless of whether you’re riding on the flat or downhill, if you want to go as quickly as possible you need to brake late and brake hard. If you’re braking hard you want your centre of gravity as low and rearward as possible at the point of maximum deceleration. Unless you have arms like Mr Tickle a flatter lever position will work better when your body is in this braking stance. And then there are all the other benefits…

surely if you are being bounced off the pedals your knees arnt soft enough? this comes from your spd riding. i get the same thing when i start riding flats again after a period of riding clips.

you need to relax more and worry less about your feet.

you’re too upright. your upper body needs to be much lower.

high5 tom and trickydisco 🙂

So an update.

I went out on Sunday for a swim round Blacka for a couple of hours. Did a few runs down Devils Elbow to play with technique a bit.

The one change I made to my setup was to swap the Tevas for my old 5:10 Freeriders patched up with gaffer tape (lasted about 20 mins!).

Instantly, as soon as I put shoe to pedal, I felt much more secure. Best way to put it is that I felt my foot to be in the pedal rather than on it. Actually riding bore that out – even the first run before my brain was in gear I had no foot movement issues, and despite the river of a trail, I was pedaling at least as much as if I was on clips. Didn’t have to think what I was doing with my feet at all.

I had a think/play with positioning. I do stand a lot lower than the original pics imply, but my fore-aft position is about the same. I tried moving further back, but whilst I (obviously) put more weight on my back foot, I found the extra abuse I was giving the back wheel (and so thr increased risk of pinchflats) not worth the extra grip (there’s a limit to what you can absorb when you can’t see a damn thing you’re riding over because you’re riding down a stream and blinking rain/spray out of your eyes once a second (despite the crud catcher and the neoguard).

This means very little, but from the select sample of 4 other riders I saw out, I was going, way, WAY faster than any of them. One was tripoding his way down, 2 fell off at walking pace and the 4th was picking nice lines and riding smoothly but was going at maybe 7mph. (sticks enormous, stealth rubber coated, todger back into shorts).

To conclude, I reckon the problem is maybe 80% shoes, 20% technique. Yes my skills could always be better, and I’m sure better flats riders than me would get on with the Tevas quite happily, but a swap of footwear seems to solve/mask the issue pretty satisfactorily.

Jon
if you look closely at the kyle Vid his front foot has heel drop but not so much the back one, so that is “Normal” even for the best of riders.
other than that would agree re brake levers, and seat drop, not to get the weight back so much as to get weight lower.

3 pages for you to change shoes ?

😛

I don’t think you should care about pinch flats in your riding position.

I stick my bum back a bit and bend my legs, and lean my torso forward/make it flatter and bend my elbows a bit. I think.

I think I have the pedal spindles where the balls of my feet are too.

Hope to help.

JonEdwards – Member

To conclude, I reckon the problem is maybe 80% shoes, 20% technique.

Nope- 100% technique, but it’s a software problem that you can work around to some extent with hardware. Your shoes can’t make your feet slip, but they can save you when you make your feet slip 😉 Nowt wrong with that as long as you’re happy with the results, but you’ll still be less secure than if you sorted out the underlying issue instead of working round it.

Product, product, product, awesome, stoked! – pity nonr of the product suppliers are actually paying you. 😉

Why even start a thread like this if you’re not prepared to even try anything different.?

Your initial problem is 100% down to poor technique and still is!

100% agree with Northwind and GW here.

Too many people get hung up on having the ultra grippier shoes and pedals, and blaming their kit if it’s not grippy enough. I like the fact that my Vans (when I use flat pedals) have quite a firm sole, and that my Easton Flatboys are just grippy enough but not ridiculously grippy, so I can make adjustments in position if I need too.

Correct technique WILL keep your feet on the pedals, regardless of the pedals and shoes used.

I’ll also echo the comments on angling your levers up. 14 years of MTBing and struggling I deal with steep technical stuff was almost totally fixed in a few hours with Jedi. I raised my brake levers to maybe 25-30 degrees from horizontal (they were at about 60 degrees which at the time felt more natural!), instantly solving a couple of woes, then worked on pushing more of my weight through the pedals and less through my hands/arms. There’s plenty more things you can do to help, but these two instantly made big advances in my ability to stay on the bike over rough and technical stuff.

And you keep banging on about pinch flats… Why? Have you heard of a pump? Put some more air in the rear tyre, that’s normally the solution right! You’ll probably find once your technique is sorted, you need to run a lot more air in your rear tyre than you previously thought anyway. I’m under 12 stone, and even with a 2.25″ rear tyre anything under 35psi feels too soft now (and I run tubeless!), I’ll whack it up to 40psi for particularly rocky rides if needs be!

Sounds like real men wear loafers 😉 I think I have some Ben Shermans somewhere..

My pedals are Kona WahWahs by the way, and I wear 5.10 Guide Tennies which were my dads, and free because i’ve ‘aquired’ them from him. Thanks dad. :o)

Why even start a thread like this if you’re not prepared to even try anything different?

if you want new shoes, just buy them.

What I suggest is try to improve your position on the bike. From the pictures you seem to be too upright, with your torso not low enough. Lower your body more and this will give you more arm and leg movement allowing you to pump and skim over rough bits easier.

Another thing is with flats you need to be constantly balancing the pressure in your feet. The front pedal can be dipped and slightly higher, while the back pushes down to counterbalance (and vice versa). Mess around with subtly shifting the weight and see how you get on.

Oh and your levers are too low 😉

Remove the pins from your pedals, smear duck fat (lard will serve as a substitute) over the pedals and wear bowling shoes. Go down Cavedale every weekend until you can stay on the pedals – only then will you be a true MTB warrior.

Can’t compare Tevas with Five-tens as never worn five-tens, but the depth of the sole pattern on the Tevas is shallow. I swapped the standard pins in my nano’s (7mm long) for 6mm long ones, and the soles now sit down on the pedals, instead of merely touching on the tips of the pins.

As above, can’t say how they compare with other shoes, but that pedal mod made a huge difference in feel/grip for me with the Tevas.

Having tennis elbow, not sure how I feel about the lever position ( I tend to angle mine down a fair bit to lessen the wrist/arm angle), but as stated previously, it won’t cost you anything to try it eh?