P&G for Bicycles?

[Volones]

SVOBoy, for your application (racing), I would agree that ~90rpm would be best (range 87rpm - 95rpm).

Also to the OP, watch a Team Time Trial sometime, and you'll see the riders doing P&G as a team. They will take turns at the front (pulse), then after a few seconds, they will drift back to the back of the line (glide). This repeats until the race is over, and allows them to go faster as a group over a longer distance than any of them could do as individuals. Obviously this shows greater efficiency, but I don't think it would translate as well to individuals since most of the benefit is from reduced wind resistance.

[skyl4rk]

I pedal and coast on the way to work so as not to work up a sweat. I generally don't shift at all so it works as a low gear single speed bike. Pedal a bit, coast as far as you can, pedal a bit more.

[smsimpson83]

In very hilly areas like I live in, I pulse and glide and i think most do.... you pulse up the hill, then glide down the other side (i get up to 20-25 mph on some downhills so there is no reason to pedal.

[Glee17]

There's no thrill in coasting down a hill, jam it into high gear and crank like mother i say. I hit 41mph on my way to work this morning.

Of course I'm in New England (western Mass) and every downhill is followed by a near equal rise on the other side. Momentum is a good thing.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Glee17

There's no thrill in coasting down a hill, jam it into high gear and crank like mother i say. I hit 41mph on my way to work this morning.

You obviously don't have steep enough hills :-) I hit mid-40s on the downhill coming back from work, and could probably do higher with a tuck. Unfortunately there's a left turn at the bottom, so the glide part doesn't work too well.

[smsimpson83]

I don;t have a cyclo computer, so i dont know how fast i'm going, but it suits me just fine

[thebrad]

I remember reading on Wiki that Lance Armstrong had a cadence of around 120, then on a triathlete site that claimed 85-90 is a good range for beginners. I try to stay around 100-105, above 110 I stop making power on my current bike so it becomes an issue of efficiency.

I used to pulse and glide when I started out but as my rides became longer and more demanding I noticed that it took a lot out of me because it just seems to mimic the stop sign syndrome.

[thorpie]

I have been seriously looking at this topic - using engines to go up steep hills (pulse) and then pedal power only to go down long gradual declines (glide)
The reason pulse and glide works is because your vehicle is so overpowered. The pulse utilises the excess energy to accelerate, and then gliding uses no fuel.
It is much better to convert the energy into height (go up steep hills) and then glide down gentle gradients with the engine off. Get the right gradients (you go uphill at the motor's sweetest bsfc and roll downhill at the speed you want) and you will never be beaten on consumption with an internal combustion. Height stores 100% of the excess energy thrown at it - a power pack in a hybrid stores maybe 40% if you are lucky. And it is 100% of excess that height stores - very precisely 100%.
Using person power is very different from an engine because we don't produce excess power. We are better off keeping the energy as sugars and converting the sugars to energy fairly precisely when we need it. Because we are using our pedaling energy efficiently we are better off riding on the flat rather than going uphill and gliding down.
Engines in cars waste a lot of energy (above the thermodynamic limits). An indication is the hybrid, where running the engine at only optimum efficiency and converting to power electricity, storage and back to electricity, at 40% efficiency, gives better results than using the engine for direct drive!!
To put that into perspective a car is generally wasting, above the thermodynamic limits, 60% of the energy.

[Andyman]

Good answer, thorpie. For biking, muscles are probably most efficient at a low power level, like about 1/4 horsepower or less. I'm pretty sure that it is more efficient to keep putting out 1/4 horsepower than to make 1/2 HP half the time and rest the other half of the time. Also, you don't get twice the speed when you double the power, you only get about 1.26 (the cube root of 2) times the speed, since the vast majority of the power is used to overcome wind resistance. Doubling the speed requires 8 times the power (2 cubed). If I remember correctly, you can go about 20 MPH on a level road when using 1/4 HP on a good ten speed bike.

My strategy for biking is to just go at the highest comfortable speed on level roads. I coast down most hills without pedaling and when I have to climb a hill I use a little extra effort, since extra power on a hill will significantly improve the average speed.

Glee17, you remind me of some of my biking when I was a kid. The steepest hill I rode was Tyringham mountain road heading north from Monterey. I had a speedometer on my bike and I'm pretty sure I exceeded 40 MPH pedaling down that hill. I had to pedal really fast even in the highest gear of my ten speed bike. The water would run out from the corners of my eyes. There was a bump in the road that caused me to take a little jump. Then at at the bottom of the hill there was a fairly sharp right turn. I would sit straight up before the turn to catch some air and slow down before the turn.