When we learn to ride a bike, we don't. We learn how to not fall off. Because it hurts when you do. This is akin to hitting a dog everytime it barks in an attempt to cause an effect (silence in that case). Bark = Pain. Fall off bike = pain.
Although the ability to stay upright is not to be scoffed at, nobody *really* learns (emphasis) to ride their bike. It's something which we all tend to bimble along at. For those of us who grew up in an age where there were fewer TV channels, or indeed no TV channels, we used to go off and muck about on our Raleigh Grifters and the like and make up our own BMX tracks, jumps and berms and basically while away the hours larking around.
Having coached quite a number of Go-Ride sessions now I've noticed something. Adults are not very good at pedalling. I've noticed this during club runs and also observing people on the roads who are evidently coming in to the sport on the back of the Olympics and Britpack Tour de France victories which we are now becoming almost blase about.
The Go-Ride syllabus has several sessions which focus on the techniques relating to efficient and effective pedalling. I was given a "pedalling" session as part of my practical coaching assessment and I was really cheesed off at the time to get something so dull. Why not group riding in contact or high speed cornering? To dismiss pedalling technique as a trivial activity or something unglamarous is to be done so at your peril. Getting a group of kids to race against one another with half in their lowest gear and pedalling smoothly and at high cadence and the others using the biggest chainring and smallest sprocket, guess who wins every time? The spinners do every time.
Combine pedalling with correct gear choice and anticipation of terrain and you are going to be going faster sooner. Get these elements wrong and not only will you be going backwards in the bunch, you'll damage your knees and you'll also wear your kit and body down.
Good pedalling techniques involves good alignment of the ball of the foot in the centre of the pedal. This means keeping your knees in alignment with your feet, and your feet point forward. Have a look at your own feet, are the turning in or too close to the cranks? Tell tail scuff marks on a second hand Dura-Ace crankset I acquired tell me that the rider "didn't get on with them" because their heel was striking the crank and therefore their leg was point out. The pedal stroke should be even and fluid. Mashing the gear by pumping the lower leg up and down like a steam piston is not only ungainly, it's not effective. As one leg flows down, the other should be pulling up on the opposite side of the bike to counter balance things and convert potential energy in to kinetic energy on that next stroke. With some of the body's biggest muscles hanging off the backside and thighs it makes sense that these muscle groups need to be put to good effect so try and imagine a beautiful flowing cyclic action which has its basis at the pelvis and sees the knee form the centre of an arc with the ankle forming the lower point.
The final thing to consider is saddle height, a bit like Goldilocks and the bear's porridge the height needs to be just right. Too high and the leg will stretch and you will be in pain due to overextending the muscles and tendons in the knee and quads. Too low and you'll see your knees smash in to your elbows as well as look like a numpty. With the cycling shoe heel resting on the flat of one of the pedals at its lowest point (the 6 o'Clock position) your leg should be just shy of being fully extended. You may find that one leg is longer than the other in which case you'll need to make some small adjustments but the principle still holds. You may want to get the tape measure out to record the centre (of pedal) to a directly extended line at the crest of your saddle. Scribble that down and keep a record as it'll help if you need to take a seatpost out or if you swap a saddle at a later date.
There's more to pedalling than you may think. Ask yourself how much of the above you have taken for granted and then ask yourself how smootly you are pedalling. On a turbo trainer, try clipping in with one leg and restrict yourself to a few minutes pedalling with just your right then just your left leg. That'll give you the answer you are looking for.
Happy pedalling.
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