Hopping on a bike and pushing down on the pedals seems quite natural, right? However, if that’s all you do, you’ll never be able to develop a smooth, efficient pedal stroke. So, you may want to do this instead: when the pedals reach 3 o’clock on the pedal stroke, pull back with a swiping motion as if you are wiping mud off the bottom of your shoes. You’ll notice an immediate boost in power, especially on hills. Also, if you focus on this technique for only a few rides, your pedal stroke will smooth out and become way more efficient. In time, it’ll become a habit.

Palm Protection

As it turns out two nerves run through your palms and they can become painfully numb from cycling.
There are 3 mistakes you should avoid:

• Ride without gloves
• Grip the bars too tightly
• Not moving your hands around to different parts of the handlebars

Relax

One of the most common mistakes is riding while you’re too tight in the upper body. In case you see somebody cycling and you see locked shoulders and straight, stiff arms, you’re looking at someone who’s probably going to have a sore neck and arms at the end of the ride. So, be sure to relax when you’re cycling. Keep nice, loose, bent arms. Drop your shoulders and get comfortable. Learn training yourself to relax by, every 15 minutes or so, shrugging your shoulders to get them to drop and relax. Bring your elbows down and closer together and shake your arms to relax them. Bend your elbows.
You’ll feel a whole lot better and have a lot more control of your bike if you can learn to ride comfortably like this.

Hook Your Thumbs

An essential safety measure is always keeping at least one of your thumbs beneath the handlebars. If you can do this, you’ll avoid crashing due to your hands slipping off the bars. This can happen if you hold onto the tops with all your fingers over the handlebars. In this position, if you hit a bump and aren’t prepared, your hands can slip off causing a crash.

How to Shift

If you think of yourself as the bike’s engine and try to shift frequently to maintain a comfortable and steady pedaling effort, you’ll start using the gears more effectively. Keep in mind that shifting works best when you apply only light pedal pressure to the pedals. Therefore shift before the hill gets too steep and never stomp the pedals until a shift has taken place. Many people find a pedal cadence of about 60 to 90 rpm about right. What’s important is to find what feels right for you and then shift every time it’s either too hard or too easy to pedal. When you realize that you need to shift, use the right shift lever for small adjustments in pedal effort and use the left lever for major changes in how hard or easy it is to pedal. There’s no need to be scared to shift. Shift often and you’ll get good at it and on rides you’ll save energy and feel better.

Corner Fearlessly

When you come into what seems to be a scary turn, if you can get yourself to look to the inside of the turn you’ll find that the corner is not so scary anymore and you’ll scoot right around it.

Use Bigger Gears Off Road

To make off-road rides smoother and more comfortable, try riding in slightly larger gears. This allows you to support more of your weight on the pedals and get some off your seat, which allows “floating” over, rather than pounding into ruts, roots and other rough stuff. The same trick works riding your road bike over bumpy pavement.