[cachagua]

The model [in the GCN video and the bikethink-dot-com article] is that you squeeze the frame between two forces, applied at the pedal and at the rear wheel. In response the frame flexes, and when you reduce one of the forces squeezing it, the frame unflexes, and the strain energy it had stored does some work.

Where does it do some work? It does some work where the force was reduced.

And that's exactly what happens when you're actually riding, only when you're riding, it's switched around the other way. When you're riding, the resistance at the rear wheel stays the same, like the pedal pressure did in the video -- and when you're riding, the force from your pedal is what's reduced, whenever you come around to the part of your pedal stroke where your force drops below its maximum.

This make sense to anybody?