I added a cadence/speed sensor to my bike to complement my gps – no real reason other than because I could.
So, road ride yesterday of 41 miles with average speed of 16.7 mph, 2888ft of ascent gave me an average cadence of 72rpm, maximum cadence of 110rpm – is this good/bad/doesn’t matter?

I’m not training for anything, just wondering if its low/high etc.

how did your legs feel afterwards? 72 rpm is low for a road ride.

Legs felt ok, normal really.

I ride a 50/34 compact with an 11-28 cassette btw

try the same ride with a higher cadence and see how that feels

Current thinking favors a higher RPM; above 85 and ideally 90+

A higher cadence reduces the fatigue on the leg muscles by placing greater stress on the cardiovascular system.

Depends how the average has been calculated. At steady state I’d be around 90-95rpm, but my average for the ride, calculated for when I’m moving would show less than 70.

It might depend how you have the recorder set up – on Garmin units you can set the cadence meter to only log when you are actually pedalling so long downhills don’t lower your average.

If you are on Strava (other bike nerd sites are available) then click on your ride and click the analysis tab. This will show you your cadence over the whole ride so it might be that just one or two hills affected the overall figure.

I did a 64Km ride with 1500m of ascent: avg cadence 69, max 110. For most of the time I was spinning away between 80 & 90 rpm even on the long hills but there were three steep hills where I’ll have been pedalling at 40 rpm and those twenty minutes will have brought the average down a lot.

90rpm feels like my feet are spinning insanely fast. It’s only recently from doing sufferfest that I’ve realised that my ‘comfortable’ rpm of about 65 is probably a bit low.

How old are you?

Your natural cadence slows down with age so the simplistic “you should pedal at xxx” needs to be adjusted in line with this.

but there were three steep hills where I’ll have been pedalling at 40 rpm and those twenty minutes will have brought the average down a lot.

40 sounds terrible, why don’t you change your gearing?

I’m 47, inside leg of 27″ and the unit (Mio 505) probably logs over the whole time spent riding.

Is it a mountain biker thing? Lower cadence from having to grunt up stuff and using the pedals for balance? got a meter on my roadbike recently and really struggle to hold it above 80 for any length of time.

Depends how the average has been calculated. At steady state I’d be around 90-95rpm, but my average for the ride, calculated for when I’m moving would show less than 70.

Any decent cadence sensor should exclude zeros in the average though.

40 sounds terrible, why don’t you change your gearing?

Sounds about right for mashing a big gear out of the saddle. Agreed likely not all that efficient though.

Is it a mountain biker thing? Lower cadence from having to grunt up stuff and using the pedals for balance? got a meter on my roadbike recently and really struggle to hold it above 80 for any length of time.

I average 90-95 on the road, no idea off road, so no!

My boss is a keen recent convert to cycling, he deliberately pushes a high gear at a low cadence because he wants to make his legs bigger. He won’t accept that this won’t actually make him any faster.

🙄

Well yeah but you ride a lot more on and off road than most onhere. I ride (bugger all at the minute) but 3 times a week tops normally and have only ridden road for aboutt 3 years. I’d guess that cadences are lower on the mtb and habitutaion would mean that unless you’re sticking in the road miles too you’ll revert to what feels normal. DOn’t know if this applies to the OP but i’d suggest thet you are at one extreme of the spectrum, Njee.

Next time I’ll set the unit so I can actually see my current cadence rate – may be interesting!

is this good/bad/doesn’t matter?

I have a theory that it depends on the mass of your legs. In theory higher is better but the higher you go the more energy is wasted simply moving the mass of your legs up and down. Heavier legs = more lost energy. So if you’re a whippet a higher cadence would be better, if you’re more heavily built then lower. For me though low would be 80.

IIRC you are short, Muddydwarf – how long are your cranks? I find it much easier to spin shorter cranks nicely but being average the typical 170mm on road works well for me. If they’ve slapped the typical size on your small road bike it could be making it much harder to spin efficiently.

last 2 MTB rides, XX1 with 34t up front

Dalby – Average – 94
Dr’s Gate/Cut Gate – 88

I’d ignore it, and all the comments above! The only time you can realistically use cadence of any sort of barometer of performance is in conjunction with a power meter, or on flat roads in ideal conditions.

You did nearly 1000m of climbing which is a decent amount in a short ride, and without knowing the profile of those climbs it would be impossible to even guess at whether your cadence is too fast or too slow.

I only pay any attention when I’m dissecting stats after time trials, and that’s purely to try and find the optimum cadence for parts of the course – but even then, I know exactly what gear I’m in, so the figures actually mean something.

G

Is it a mountain biker thing? Lower cadence from having to grunt up stuff and using the pedals for balance? got a meter on my roadbike recently and really struggle to hold it above 80 for any length of time.

IME MTB’ers tend to have a sit and spin mentality, whereas roadies will grunt up a hill in a 39t chainring.

Depends on the terrain though, I think a slow cadence helps on rough ground as the force from the ground is smaller relative to the pedaling force. At a higher cadence the pedaling force drops (power = force x speed) so repetitively cycling over small rocks breaks your rhythm. As an example, I put a cadence sensor on my SS and the fastest I can actually pedal is 85-90rpm, at least 20 lower than my comfortable upper limit on the road bike (i.e. I could pedal faster but it just becomes inefficient and only really useful for training).

I’ve no idea actually – they came off a Mekk Potenza SL when I swapped them over to my current frame.
TBH ive always just ridden what comes on my bikes, being such an outside means no company really caters for me so ive just got on with it.

Most rides around here (south Pennines) give 100ft of ascent for every mile ridden – or thereabouts.

That was kind of where i was coming from. Ride a lot of loose rocky climbs and twiddling doesn’t give you enough to ‘work against’ when moving the bike around. But maybe I’m doing it wrong. Could be the leg mass thing. My uber-he-man zeppelin thighs just deliver too much powah! (perhaps not). Maybe i just need to sell the kids and ride more.

OP – SOunds like there may be some benefit in measuring on a flat run and working on that rather than worryin too much on a varied ride.

I only pay any attention when I’m dissecting stats after time trials, and that’s purely to try and find the optimum cadence for parts of the course – but even then, I know exactly what gear I’m in, so the figures actually mean something.

yer but if you fit one, and find out after your ride, your average cadence was say 50 – probably indicates you should try changing gearing, no?

i very very rarely even get chance to look at the Garmin on a MTB ride, going to be off and in the bushes if you do, but it lets you collect the data, and do something with it that could be positive for your riding

whereas roadies will grunt up a hill in a 39t chainring.

i think that attitude is changing

“average” of 72?

Well current thinking is to up that to around 83-87 and even in race mode for Pros they try to hack around 88-95 ish.

But loads of TT’ers pull big gears and ave around 70-75.

I’d say don’t worry too much about the numbers, fine a nice easy pace that suits you and enjoy the ride.

Theres loads of theories to read upon if you are really that bothered, but you’d be better off riding the bike and just getting out there and maybe upping the cadence a little.

yer but if you fit one, and find out after your ride, your average cadence was say 50 – probably indicates you should try changing gearing, no?

I ride by feel, but it can be useful to look at cadence, in conjunction with HR and power and work out where it might have been possible to push a higher gear.

I’m a fast spinner but there’s a “cadence sweetspot” which depends on far more than simply how fast you’re spinning your legs.

G

most modern roadies wouldn’t know what a 39t chain ring was…

most modern roadies wouldn’t know what a 39t chain ring was…

Why not?

G

because most road bikes now come with a compact chainset which is either 50/34 or sometimes 52/36

I’m sure most of them understand the concept of “numbers” though Captain Slow. 🙄

G

Yup, current trend is to go compact, bit easier on the legs..

But then I know 2 TT’ers that use compact’s too..

Yup, current trend is to go compact, bit easier on the legs..

It might be for new/born-again cyclists, but the 53/39 is still alive and well at club and race level.

And why on earth would you use a compact in a TT?? I use a 54 and have never even used my inner chainring…

G

OK so I was taking a cheap shot at the new generation of roadies and my sweeping generalisation fell flat.

To get back to the point though I tend to average about 80 cadence at 53 years old whereas my 17 year old whippet of a son averages more like 95. Personally, I think it is because I coast down hills whereas his lack of mass means he has to pedal to keep up…

And why on earth would you use a compact in a TT?? I use a 54 and have never even used my inner chainring…

What if they’re only just breaking 30mins for a 10…..?

40 sounds terrible, why don’t you change your gearing?

Out of the saddle on a 25% gradient it’s about right for me, there’s a certain gradient steeper than which spinning just doesn’t work for me. I certainly wouldn’t want to be doing that when sat down unless it was on the flat and I was just pootling along and putting very little force in to each stroke.

There’s spinning and there’s spinning though! A very quick check suggests I tend to do about 60-70rpm when climbing out of the saddle.

40 is a full on grind!

What if they’re only just breaking 30mins for a 10…..?

You’d still be at the top end of the sprocket – far better to have you’re most used gears in the middle of the spocket for a better chainline, and have room for manoeuvre up and down.

G

If they’re not breaking 30 for a 10 then they’re not really a TT’er…

My Garmin came with the cadence sensor, so just because I have it, I’ve fitted it to my mtb hard tail. I’ve never paid attention to it. The cadence value is largely irrelevant to me.

For what it’s worth though going by what I notice in riding off road I spin at a consistent-ish rate whatever the terrain based on the gear I select. So long as it’s not a struggle to push the pedals or I’m not spinning like crazy and yet not moving much, then it’s fine.

Keep thinking about singlespeed though, and I wonder how that affects things as there are no gears to level out the cadence.