[John Rogers]

One of the hardest things to learn when cycling is to be able to use your muscles for the full 360 degrees of pedal rotation. When I was racing back in the 1970's and 1980's our racing club would get the new cyclists to work very hard on pulling back and then up and over the top. It was difficult since we made ourselves rides with just one foot for a while and then the other and usually in a very low gear so pedal speed would have to really increase. We would lock all the riders gears to a very low one and let the kids use all there's so they would enjoy beating a senior class rider some times!

Usually long distance riders don't worry much about this or hill climbers either. Close course races such as velodrome or criterium rides would need the pedal speed especially at the end for the sprint.