For Coach Hill

[Barry Charles]

As a road cyclist from the early 80s, I recall setting my cleats for a slightly pigeon toed position. This was in the dark ages before floating cleats were in use. The idea was to be more aerodynamic (knees towards the top tube) and have efficient bio mechanics. For years I walked slightly pigeon toed. Today, however, by squatting duck footed (with knees out) I am now walking much more open footed, especially climbing stairs. Two questions:

1) do cycling experts still advocate knees/toes in? (Does the aero advantage prevail)

2) is someone's gait, genetic or trained? the answer might explain my mediocre cycling career, then, or my fight for heavy squats now).

Thanks!

[Tom Campitelli]

Bumping for Esteban. I certainly have no idea what the answers are here.

[tertius]

As a road cyclist from the early 80s, I recall setting my cleats for a slightly pigeon toed position. This was in the dark ages before floating cleats were in use. The idea was to be more aerodynamic (knees towards the top tube) and have efficient bio mechanics. For years I walked slightly pigeon toed. Today, however, by squatting duck footed (with knees out) I am now walking much more open footed, especially climbing stairs. Two questions:

1) do cycling experts still advocate knees/toes in? (Does the aero advantage prevail)

2) is someone's gait, genetic or trained? the answer might explain my mediocre cycling career, then, or my fight for heavy squats now).

Thanks!

As a man with a thing for dancers and who at for a period of many years paid a remarkable amount of attention to the bottoms of his own feet, I feel pretty confident in saying that "gait" is heavily influenced by training and habit, though there is almost certainly (like everything else) a genetic component.