I followed a (road) rider for quite some distance last week, riding the same speed yet much higher gear than me and therefore a low cadence. I know this rider is an accomplished racer.

Are there advantages from a strength/endurance/speed perspective or is it just a persons physiology that ultimately determines the “right” cadence?

as a general rule of thumb high cadence works your lungs low cadence works your legs. most riders are most efficient in the 80-100 rpm region.

Perhaps he was training at low cadence? Personally I thought the most efficient cadence was around the 90 mark

Personally i think its a mix of the above plus what you believe works for you and how you have ridden over a long period.

I regarded myself as a torquey rider – lower revs for years then i got an ss and found my muscles needed a retrain for the road sections – ie to learn to spin.

When I get tired I find turning down the revs on the flat and gearing up lets me keep the pace up.

In my case I think the torque comes from tt-ing and touring in flat old suffolk 20 years agowhere it was very efficient so my muscles developed that way and I was slow to adapt when I moved somewhere hillier.

If you can spin a fast cadence you can react to attacks better in races.

Took me a while to train my self to have a fast cadence but ive never looked back my climbing improoved ten fold too. much smoother application of power for mtb as well, mashing a big gear results in loss of traction often whereothers can just spin over the slippy bit

Watching alot of amateur road racing recently and most cat 2 and 1s are spinners most cat 4s are stompy mashers in big gears often with bobbing heads/shoulders.

In my case I think the torque comes from tt-ing and touring in flat old suffolk 20 years agowhere it was very efficient so my muscles developed that way and I was slow to adapt when I moved somewhere hillier.

I think there’s a lot of truth in that, low gears/high cadence is great for changing pace but constant speed can be done efficiently at lower cadence. Since moving to Holland I have noticed that the fast lads are mashers rather than spinners and that rides are a constant effort rather more like a TT than a road/mtb race.

my knees hurt if i push big gears.

doesn’t happen on the single-speed though, which suggests it’s only a problem if i’m sitting down.

i guess other people are different.

Depends on the discipline. As above, a higher cadence, spinning style males you more responsive in a road race. A lot of people will push higher gears at a lower cadence in time trials, however, where you are riding at a constant effort, and there is no requirement to deal with sudden changes in pace.
I think there have been some studies that suggested bigger gear, lower cadence was more efficient physiologically.

I’ve always been a masher but have tried to up my cadence over the past couple of years on MTB and road, but still find it difficult to get above 70rpm average.
Surely it’s advantageous to be both rather than one or the other?

high cadence works your lungs low cadence works your legs

simple as that

I struggle over 80rpm, my legs just don’t work like that currently. Spent 2 months on the turbo doing power/cadence monitored work outs recovering from a hand injury and I learnt a lot about how my body works with pedaling. It’s dull and boring but I didn’t have much else to do…

It explains why anyone telling you what single/double ring setup to buy is likely to be wrong 🙂

There may be optimum cadence rates for certain things but if they are not in your range then it’s a waste of time.

I suspect it’s a good idea to do both.

Before so many went of us mad for high cadence off the back of Lance, myself included, I used to be a masher and jump out of the saddle all the time, particularly on the mtb. I remember I used to challenge myself on climbs with how high a gear I could use, especially staying in the big ring. Coming off that strength base spinning high cadence suddenly made climbing the strongest part of my competitive riding, and helped conserve energy until I was ready to put in my strategic efforts.

Now, no doubt partly due to age having hit 40, but mostly because I rarely rode high gears, I think it gradually made me weaker. I no longer seem to be able to respond even via high cadence. It seems like I’ve got used to a high cadence range and a low strength effort. Hence my original point. Maybe it’s time I introduced intervals, strength training, and high gears, if I can.

For those saying i cant and they dont.

I suggest a liberal dose of fixed wheel road miles next winter.

At higher cadence you use less force per pedal revolution than you would for the same speed with a lower cadence. This means that you will tire your legs later than for a lower cadence. Its good for endurance. Higher cadences employ low twitch muscles which are more efficient at removing the lactic acid from the muscles. Big gears generally use the fast twitch muscles, more power, but less effective at removing lactic acid and you fatigue faster.

I think it’s not as black and white as people thought, we someone doing well wether it be the cadence they spin at or the size of the wheels they ride on and we follow them.
We are individuals, most of us can’t afford a coach so you have to experiment for yourself, and that takes time, even whole seasons.

A bit like the ‘I overtook a roadie’ thread, you have to ignore what everyone else is doing and find that sweet spot. FWIW a high cadence didn’t work for me. However my target was road races, and UK road races are typically short and firey, certainly no place for the LA school of high cadence, save that for the Grand Tours.
If it makes you feel better, Wiggo lowered his cadence for his Tour winning season.

I think it’s not as black and white as people thought,

Exactly, would really suggest getting on something that actually measures something rather than perception. Even if the implied power outputs etc from the trainerroad/cyclops setup were out they were consistent. To see an output of what you are doing and to be taken through workouts directly looking at cadence vs power vs HR was great.

Exactly, would really suggest getting on something that actually measures something rather than perception.

Perception. I cast your mind back to the Sandwell days. Tests were done on the 24 hour course (not blindingly scientific though) top racers of the day were timed on their hardtails over a few laps. Then timed on short travel full sussers. When asked they all said their hard tail laps were faster, but in fact it was their laps on the sussers that were faster.
But that applies to one circuit only.

If Ulrich had been a better doper, we would all be mashing big gears and lower cadence. He wasnt so high cadence, lower gears (designed for specific reason, for specific rider) has become the accepted wisdom. Simples. Whose juice are you on?

From memory and without referring to the books the reason high cadence (speed of repetition) is preferable within an endurance sport is due to the effect on muscle fibre recruitment.

The essence of the theory is that high speed repetition with lower resistance increases the number of type I muscle fibres recruited (used) within a particular muscle for a given work load. The optimum cadence in a trained individual is thought to be 90-105 rpm; this seems to be the best compromise between power output and fatigue resistance.

To maintain a particular speed (or power output) you need to either push a high gear at a moderate cadence or a lower gear at a higher cadence. To push a higher gear requires more force – the more force you apply affects which muscle fibres are used; the higher the force the more likely you’ll use type II fibres. This type are the fast twitch fibres and their use is related to fatigue and muscle soreness. Whereas high cadence lower force uses only the slow twitch fibres that are essentially endurance related. This means higher cadence produces less fatigue for a given speed for a longer period.

Not sure if all that makes sense as I’m in bed on my iPhone.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/jul/31/bradley-wiggins-olympic-time-trial

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Lq5vJDGMU_UC&pg=PA276&lpg=PA276&dq=bradley+wiggins+cadence+higher+gear&source=bl&ots=Jx4PsjugbZ&sig=86rFUkdUzSTIr8xhQoSrWYkjuoc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Bqx7UYq4LIaM0AWAoIHYBw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=bradley%20wiggins%20cadence%20higher%20gear&f=false

If it makes you feel better, Wiggo lowered his cadence for his Tour winning season.

I believe that was for the time trials. If I remember correctly he trained at 50rpm with his usual power output in order to drop his tt rpm by around 5rpm after the team had analysed Fabian Cancellara’s technique.

Watching videos of me riding, I realise that I pedal pretty quickly.

Years ago I read that Lance Armstrong has a high cadence, and I wonder if that subconsciously altered how I rode when I was starting.

Maybe I should have taken EPO too…

I’m a masher on the roadie have been since i was once a semi pro back in the day, didnt think i need to change styles but i took some time off the bike and for sure over the last 8 years I’ve been trying to up my cadence and I have to some extent, not a lot though. I made a commitment to up pace and figured a training routine around it, took me blooming ages to get used to spinning up, but I have the hang of it now. But.. But I must say my legs feel better mashing, I get more “positive” leg strength sensations from stomping.
However, you know I also ride 29erSS and that I’ve just changed up to a more spinny gearing, found I was hacking a loop in 1hr16mins in the low gearing, now I’ve changed I’m able to climb a couple of sharpies and my hack loop is down to1hr2mins, I’m hoping to get under 1hr soon.
I’m not a fan of TT’s, I don’t get the logic of it but if I did do one, I think I’d probably get back into mashing again, but im not, I love climbing see..

We all ride at our own pace(s) and once comfortable and you feel strong, then develop that, there are no hard and fast rules.

Reading Tyler Hamiltons book atm.

Apparently the Ferrari guy said that low cadence tires the muscles, high cadence the cardiovascular system.

I’m thinking that as EPO targets the cardio system Lance increased his cadence due to EPO?