Ankling is a cycling technique where you deliberately change the angle of your foot throughout the pedal stroke, dropping your heel on the downstroke and lifting it on the upstroke. The goal is to eliminate “dead spots,” those points at the very top and bottom of each pedal revolution where you’re not generating any useful force. Done well, ankling keeps constant pressure on the pedals through the full 360-degree rotation.
How Ankling Works Through the Pedal Stroke
Picture a clock face where 12 o’clock is the top of your pedal stroke and 6 o’clock is the bottom. During the power phase (roughly 1 to 5 o’clock), your heel drops slightly as you push down. As the pedal passes through the bottom of the stroke, you pull your toes down and back, as if scraping mud off the bottom of your shoe. This “scraping” motion is the heart of ankling. It lets you apply force horizontally across the bottom of the arc instead of just pushing uselessly downward into the lowest point.
As the pedal travels up the back side of the stroke (7 to 11 o’clock), your heel lifts and your toes stay relatively low, helping you pull the pedal upward if you’re using clipless pedals. The cycle then resets at the top.
The technique changes slightly depending on how fast you’re pedaling. At lower cadences (60 to 90 RPM), typical for climbing, the ankle drop between about 2 and 3 o’clock is subtle, and the ankling motion brings the toes back down by 5 o’clock. At higher cadences on flat terrain (90+ RPM), the ankling motion between 3 and 6 o’clock becomes more pronounced, and the heel stays higher during the back portion of the stroke.
Which Muscles Make It Happen
The two main calf muscles, the gastrocnemius and the soleus, do the bulk of the work during ankling. They stabilize your ankle joint and transfer power to the pedals during the transition phase at the bottom of the stroke, which is exactly where dead spots occur. The muscle along the front of your shin (the tibialis anterior) handles the opposite job, pulling your toes up as the pedal rises through the back of the stroke.
Because these are relatively small muscles compared to your quads and glutes, they fatigue faster when asked to do extra work. This is one reason ankling is a technique that requires gradual development rather than something you force into long rides immediately.
What Ankling Does for Your Ride
The primary benefit is smoother power delivery. Without ankling, most cyclists only generate meaningful force during the downstroke, roughly from 1 to 5 o’clock. The rest of the revolution is wasted motion. Ankling lets you contribute force across the bottom and back of the stroke, which means more of each pedal revolution is productive. For climbing, where every watt matters and cadence is low, this can make a noticeable difference in efficiency.
Ankling also improves proprioception, your body’s awareness of where your foot and ankle are in space. Over time, this better joint awareness can improve your balance on the bike and help you develop a more fluid, natural pedaling style. Riders who ankle well often describe their pedal stroke as feeling “round” rather than choppy.
Potential Downsides and Injury Risk
The most common complaint is premature calf fatigue. If you’re not used to actively engaging your calves through the full pedal stroke, they’ll burn out well before your larger leg muscles do, especially on longer rides. This tends to resolve as the muscles adapt, but it can be frustrating early on.
A more serious concern is strain on the Achilles tendon. The Achilles connects your calf muscles to your heel bone and bears significant stress during repetitive motion. Ankling increases the range of motion and workload at the ankle joint, which adds repetitive stress to this tendon with every single pedal revolution. At 90 RPM, that’s 5,400 ankle flexion cycles per hour. Ramping up the intensity or volume of ankling too quickly follows the classic pattern for Achilles tendonitis: a sudden increase in repetitive load on a tendon that hasn’t adapted to it yet.
Cyclists with a history of Achilles problems or tight calves should introduce ankling gradually. Short intervals of focused ankling during easy rides, rather than trying to maintain it through an entire session, gives the tendon time to adapt.
How to Practice Ankling
Start on a trainer or a flat, low-traffic road at a moderate cadence around 80 to 85 RPM. Focus on the bottom of the pedal stroke first, since that’s where ankling has its biggest impact. Concentrate on the “mud scraping” motion: as your foot reaches the 5 o’clock position, pull your toes downward and slightly backward before the pedal starts its upward path.
Single-leg drills are particularly useful. Unclip one foot and pedal with just the other, which forces you to pull through the dead spots rather than relying on the opposite leg’s downstroke to carry the pedal around. You’ll feel exactly where your stroke breaks down. Even two or three minutes per leg at the end of a few rides per week builds the coordination quickly.
Once the bottom of the stroke feels natural, shift your attention to keeping your heel lifted as the pedal travels up the back side. The full ankling pattern, heel drop on the downstroke smoothly transitioning to heel lift on the upstroke, typically takes a few weeks of deliberate practice before it becomes automatic. After that, most cyclists find they ankle without thinking about it.