i don’t know about this.
Planing: The ability of a rider to get in sync with a bicycle. When the bicycle planes, riding with high power output becomes easier, probably because less lactic acid is produced in the rider’s leg muscles. Planing is associated with frame flex. The term is borrowed from boats, which use less energy at higher speeds as they plane and rise out of the water. See Vol. 4, No. 4; Vol. 5, No. 4; Vol. 6, No. 4.
term from bicycle quarterly glossary.
It’s all in the head, which goes a long way I’ll admit.
That sounds like hokum.
Its all about the zen
your avatar, i love it
sometimes i feel like i’m really moving (at little effort), but i think im probably just on a small decline, or have a little bit of a tailwind or something.
its only at a certain cadence. its probably all mental tho, at least for me
but im sure theres a cadence/power output that has the best results for each person.
kinda like how each car has a peak-power/peak-MPG at a certain speed (or RPM) in a certain gear
but that thing about frame flex is interesting…
where did you find this article? (EDIT: found it on google)
id like to learn more about the topic
this sounds like some combination of zen and giving you all of it.
Sounds like going down a hill.
edit: so yeah, my bike does that.
It’s the same thing as “being in the zone”, just different words to describe the feeling. Not really something that’s confined to cycling or boating at all, really - all types of athletes describe the same thing. You can go on Fixed Gear Fever and read threads about the same deal from the big shot racer types, and I’m sure if you talked to Lebron or Kobe they’d mention the same thing about a high-stakes game in basketball.
Yes, it overlaps into Buddhism, especially the zen path. It’s not really something that is exclusive to sports or athletics but all types of activities. If you haven’t experienced it in anything, then you haven’t lived.
I don’t really buy the idea that “planing” is experienced with frame flex though. It’s just a phenomena of the mind-body “dualism” being broken down in my opinion.
No, but my astral does.
Some bikes definitely seem to go faster for the same perceived effort. As well as I can understand it, this is what the planing concept refers to… bikes that “plane” make it easier (less effort) to go faster for long periods of time. Bikes that do not plane make you work like a dog to putt along and you’re sick of riding them after just a few miles.
Obviously there are a LOT of variables at play, and probably many bikes that don’t seem to “plane” off the bat can be made to do so with some appropriate tweaks, whatever those end up being.
My Cross Check “planed” when it was set up with 700x37 Conti Travel Contacts and 49x17 fixed gear. Then I added a Carradice saddlebag & support to carry stuff instead of using a messenger bag, and it seemed to stop planing… became a lot of work to go anywhere, like dragging an anchor. I’ve subsequently converted to gears (downtube friction shifters) and removed the bag support, and now it seems to plane again… in fact, it seems to plane better than ever before. Perception or reality? Probably both? 
how was this not the first post
Jan’s experience shouldn’t be discounted so easily. He’s ridden a ton of top-flight bikes from the past 100 years (over hella long distances) and is constantly comparing and analyzing. His reviews of bikes and products in that magazine are pretty fabulous. And he is not afraid to use science where possible. Unfortunately planing can’t be scientifically quantified.
Anyway, I’m a believer in planing but I have a man crush on Jan, so…
Referring to boat planning just adds the confusion and speaks ignorance. For boats, once certain speed in relation to the length is reached, the wave resistance grows steeply, so the only way to go faster is to change the lift force from a hull displacement (causing waves) to hydrodynamic (plane like) lift. Certain hull shapes are capable of it, others not, think broad and shallow 47 skiffs as opposed to deep and narrow R12 class.
For bikes (or javelins/woomeras, or running if considered biomechanically) is is either elastic or kinetic energy stored in the system and released when there is a drop (periodic in cycling) in human power output. Hence, resonance would be a better term.
“Mechanical energy can be stored in the flexing of an elastic structure such as a bow limb, a rubber band, a clock spring or an atlatl. There are many examples in nature and in simple machinery where mechanical energy storage is used to increase the efficiency of energy transfer from a heavy, slow object to a lighter object, a phenomenon called resonant energy transfer”
from “Dynamics of a spear throwing” by R. A. Baugh in Am. J. Phys. 71(4), April 2003
Somebody with a few copies of Bicycle Quarterly laying around (yeah, like that applies to anyone here) should scan the articles in the reference… obviously we need fuller explanation.
[quote=trackatino]It’s the same thing as “being in the zone”, just different words to describe the feeling. Not really something that’s confined to cycling or boating at all, really - all types of athletes describe the same thing. You can go on Fixed Gear Fever and read threads about the same deal from the big shot racer types, and I’m sure if you talked to Lebron or Kobe they’d mention the same thing about a high-stakes game in basketball.
Yes, it overlaps into Buddhism, especially the zen path. It’s not really something that is exclusive to sports or athletics but all types of activities. If you haven’t experienced it in anything, then you haven’t lived.
I don’t really buy the idea that “planing” is experienced with frame flex though. It’s just a phenomena of the mind-body “dualism” being broken down in my opinion.[/quote]
What he said.
I’ve experienced this for brief moments in sport… so good.
Whatever this “planing” is, I was doing the opposite of it on todays ride. Shit sucks.
I just thought it was synonymous with finding that sweet cadence. Thanks for bringing it up mate.
I definitely believe in tailwinds. There’s something very zen about spinning along in 53*15 with little effort.