I’m a right-handed bloke and I tend to ride with my right foot/pedal forward when I’m not pedalling and am coasting along. By ‘forward’ I mean both pedals level and stationary with my right foot/pedal to the front of the bike and my left foot/pedal at the back.

Does it matter?

This past weekend I tried it the other way around (left foot/pedal forward) and it felt wierd and distracted me when I was tackling some of the more technical bits of my ride – so I stopped and went back to right foot/pedal forward.

Is there an advantage to be had if I can break this habit and ride with either foot ‘leading’??

I can’t see one but I thought you lot would know best 😆

I know top riders consciously practice both stances so they never feel weird if it happens in a race situation. Never felt that it was important for normal riding.

It makes a difference where you put the weight going into a corner, so yes it matters. front foot pointing into the corner.

I guess if you were riding fast, come to an unexpected drop and your ‘weak’ foot is forward without time to rotate the cranks to your strong side, it is useful to be familiar with either side?

Can’t see it affecting too many people really other tha competitive types I suppose.

It is like skating / boarding goofy or regular. I don’t think it can hurt to learn both ways, can only make you more consistent.

Like football,practise with your weaker foot forward till it becomes as natural as your prefered foot.Shouldn’t take long on a bike,but did take me nearly the whole summer of ’76 to get it right for football…….

I ride either way, if I have to think about it I usualy put the outside foot foreward for the next turn so that I can have that pedal at 6 o’clock without having to back pedal and risking the chain coming off, or put in 1.5 pedals and risking being off ballance into a corner.

do you have a front foot in a corner – should you not drop the outside crank – most people would say so unless you are riding a berm

It makes a difference where you put the weight going into a corner, so yes it matters. front foot pointing into the corner

But your weight needs to be balanced through both feet, and centered through the bottom bracket? If your weight isn’t balanced, the pedal with more weight on is going to be at 6 o’clock. Might be advantages to have weight on one side of the bike, but fore and aft, it’s still all going through the BB.

Edit: not “all”, obviously you can change weight through pedals/weight through bars, but that’s not going to be affected by which foot you have forwards.

djglover – Member
It makes a difference where you put the weight going into a corner, so yes it matters. front foot pointing into the corner.

Outside foot down in a corner, surely?

if i’m going into a really tight corner (a hairpin), i find it helps* if my ‘outside’ foot is forwards…

(*maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but it feels like it does)

Ride whatever way feels the most natural (although riding a bicycle is hardly an evolutionary skill we developed naturally…)

I don’t actually think about where my feet are positioned?? (well I must do subconsciously?)

practice riding with your weaker foot forward. start with just riding along and then progress onto riding trickier and trickewr sections with you weak foot leading.

i was advised a few years back to try this after i had a silly fall due to bad foot placememt. i hit a rocky section and tried to put my right foot forward in the middle of the rocks and consequently fell off after my pedal struck a rock.

after a few weeks practising i soon got the hang of it.

i can now ride drops, jumps and other technical bits with either foot forward. it allows me to ride faster as i’m no longer having to be conscious of where my feet are.

Outside foot down in a corner, surely?

Depends on the corner. Generally ride with outside foot forward and drop the crank if it’s needed, but even this is over simplifying things.

Useful when you’re heading round tight switchbacks, having the outside foot forward naturally swings your hips round too and gets your weight into the right position.

Supposedly worth practicing, specially for tight slow rocky hairpins outside foot should be forward and ready to chuck in a quarter pedal stroke if needed.

But in reality it’s like wheelying, something i fancy learning but as time is in short supply so not yet.

I naturally lead left foot forward even though I’m right-handed/footed, I do seem to put a bit more weight on the front foot so if I’m knackered and am out of the saddle freewheeling then I sometimes consciously switch to right-foot forward, not very often though

specially for tight slow rocky hairpins switchbacks outside foot should be forward down and ready to chuck in a quarter pedal stroke quick back pedal if needed.

That’s my version of the truth anyway.

if it’s rocky enough you don’t want either pedal down. Faster smoother corners outside foot down. depends tho dunnit, no hard and fast rules.

So you’re goofy, so you need to practise switch, but when it counts (i.e. you might stack it) then ride regular, but with the caveat outside pedal down in turns.. All this according to the smiley dude at the training place I went, I can claim no status as an expert rider, but I do know about goofy and regular from other stuff..

Oh and don’t look down, look where you’re going next, not where it’s already too late to make a decision about.. Where the head goes the body generally follows…

I’ve found it was worth training myself to ride with either foot forward so that I can switch over when my legs start to tire on long stood-up descents. By alternating I can give each leg a break alternately.

Also, when riding down a narrow bit of singletrack terraced into a hillside (like at many trail centres), I don’t like to lead with the foot closest to the bank in case I catch it i.e. if there’s a bank of earth to my right I will ride with my left foot forward.

AHWiles, I agree, but I find that is because having the outside foot forward allows me to get my hips rotated in line with where I want to point the bike.
A technique I refer to as Fatnacker bum steering after a lesson or two from the big lad himself, (Not Nathan Rennie) Craig Fatnacker smith of Singletraction. and Team Fatnacker.

I don’t think its that important tbh, could practise with both so it doesn’t feel weird when you don’t have time to switch. Watch Sam Hill videos, and pretty much always he has his left foot forward no matter which way he turns.