What 2,000 Cyclists Taught Us About the Pedal Stroke

By Nick Stevovich, Founder & CEO, Nikola Innovation

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When I started Nikola Innovation, I had a hypothesis, not a product. The hypothesis was simple: the circular pedal stroke — the motion every cyclist has used for over a century — might not be the best way to turn a crank. It might actually be hurting people. And if you changed the motion itself, you might be able to solve problems that better bike fits and lighter frames never could.

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But a hypothesis is just a guess until you test it. And I was not interested in guessing.

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Why We Went to Universities

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There is a well-worn path in the cycling industry. You have an idea, you prototype it, you give it to a few sponsored riders, they say something positive, and you ship it. That approach has produced a lot of products. It has also produced a lot of marketing claims that fall apart under scrutiny.

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I wanted something different. I wanted to know — with clinical rigor — whether elliptical pedal motion actually changed outcomes for real riders. Not hand-picked athletes. Not employees. Real cyclists across a genuine range of fitness levels, riding styles, and experience.

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So instead of going straight to manufacturing, we went to the lab.

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We partnered with three institutions: Cleveland State University, Alleghany General Hospital, and Gonzaga University. Each brought a different lens to the research. Cleveland State gave us access to biomechanics expertise and a deep cycling power analysis program. Alleghany General brought clinical orthopedic perspective — they were interested in what this meant for joint health and injury prevention. Gonzaga added exercise science rigor and a West Coast rider population that looked nothing like our Ohio test groups.

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That diversity was deliberate. If the technology only worked for one kind of rider, I needed to know that before building a company around it.

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What We Measured

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Over the course of these partnerships, we tested more than 2,000 cyclists. The rider pool included weekend recreational riders, daily commuters, competitive road racers, triathletes, and people coming back from knee or hip injuries. Ages ranged from the early twenties to the mid-sixties. Some had been cycling for decades. Others had started in the last year or two.

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For each rider, we captured a detailed picture of what was happening during the pedal stroke. The measurements included:

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• \nPower output — both peak and sustained, across multiple effort levels
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• \nCycling efficiency — how much energy the rider produced relative to how much they spent
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• \nJoint stress — forces acting on the knees, hips, and IT bands during each revolution
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• \nMuscle activation patterns — which muscle groups were firing, when they were firing, and how the load was distributed across the lower body
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We were not looking for one magic number. We were trying to understand whether changing the geometry of the pedal stroke fundamentally changed the biomechanics of cycling — and whether that change was positive across a broad population.

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What the Data Showed

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The results came back clearer than I expected.

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Riders using the elliptical pedal motion saw up to 7% greater peak power. That is a meaningful number. In competitive cycling, athletes spend years and thousands of dollars chasing single-digit percentage gains. Here it was showing up from a change at the pedal interface.

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We also measured a 2% improvement in cycling efficiency. That means riders were getting more output from the same energy input. For long-distance riders and endurance athletes, that compounds over hours in the saddle. For recreational riders, it means less fatigue at the end of a ride.

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Over 70% of tested riders saw measurable improvement in at least one key metric. That is not a cherry-picked subset. That is the majority of a large, diverse test population.

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But the finding that mattered most to me personally was the significant reduction in joint stress — specifically on the knees, hips, and IT bands. The circular pedal stroke forces your joints through the same fixed path thousands of times per ride. The elliptical motion distributes that load differently, letting joints move in a more natural arc. The clinical data confirmed what we had theorized: you can reduce repetitive stress without sacrificing power. In fact, you can reduce stress and gain power at the same time.

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What Surprised Us

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I expected the technology to work well for performance-focused riders. Stronger cyclists tend to be more sensitive to equipment changes, and I figured they would be the ones who benefited most.

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I was wrong — or at least, I was incomplete.

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The breadth of improvement across rider types was the real surprise. Recreational riders saw gains. Riders recovering from injuries saw gains. Older riders who had been told their knee pain was just \"part of cycling\" saw measurable reductions in joint stress. The elliptical pedal motion was not a performance-only technology. It was a biomechanical improvement that helped across the entire spectrum.

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That changed how I thought about the product. This was not just a tool for racers chasing watts. It was something that could make cycling better — more comfortable, more efficient, more sustainable over a lifetime — for anyone who rides.

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How the Research Shaped the Product

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Every design decision in the NI Flow traces back to this data. The degree of elliptical motion, the range of controlled float, the weight distribution, the engagement mechanism — all of it was tuned against what we learned from 2,000 riders across three universities.

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The technology at the core of the NI Flow is called Flow Motion. It is a patented elliptical pedaling system that introduces controlled movement to the pedal stroke, allowing your foot and leg to follow a more natural path instead of being locked into a rigid circle. The clinical testing did not just validate the concept. It refined it. Every iteration of the mechanism was tested, adjusted, and tested again until the data said we had it right.

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The result is a pedal built on stainless steel construction, compatible with the Look KEO 3-bolt cleat system, weight-competitive with pedals like the Shimano Ultegra, and manufactured here in Ohio. It is not a theory or a prototype. It is a finished product shaped by years of university research and thousands of hours of rider data.

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The NI Flow Is Ready

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I started this journey because I believed the pedal stroke could be better. The data from 2,000 cyclists proved it. The NI Flow is the product of that proof — a cycling power improvement built on clinical evidence, not marketing claims.

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The Founder's Edition is now available for pre-order. The first 500 pairs are reserved for riders who want to be part of this from the beginning. If you have been looking for a way to ride with more efficiency and less stress on your body, this is what we built it for.

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[Reserve your pair today.]