[Closed] Cadence

A cadence sensor would help you train yourself to spin faster. But are you sure it's not the set up that is causing your knees grief?

What he said, I'm actualy finding singlespeeding to be kinder to me knees (38/19). Other than that the only way is to use a bigger cassette/smaller chainrings and if possible a cadence sensor. The low tech way would just be to shift down gears untill you spin out, then go one up from there.

I'm doing loads of road miles at the moment and tend to naturally push a pretty slow gear

Discipline and practice.

However I'd not expect knees to be a problem unless you are heaving away at 30rpm or less...

Try keeping your lower back straight, don't let it curve round so you look like a question mark.

Just concentrate on your thighs going up and down like a machine, and your lower limbs and feet just following round.

Try to emphasis the pull back and pull up parts rather than push down.

Unclip one foot and put it to the side whilst still pedalling with the other, to see if you are getting smooth.

Check that you don't need some canting in your shoes to help your knees.

It takes a surprising amount of concentration. Aim for 80-90 rpm.

Try and keep nice and still from the hips up. Some people find it helps to imagine sitting down into the saddle more hard (clumsy sentence, hope it makes sense). As you press into the saddle more it stops you from doing the stamp down on the downstroke of the pedal.

Aim for a more turbine like sensation, rather than the chug chug of slow cadence - a rotary engine, not a canal boat!

No expert at all, but cycling is low impact so shouldnt be giving you knee grief unless your twistin etc. How much float do you have in your pedals, are you using the wrong shoes for you, is your saddle to high/low too far forward/back?

Is it just when cycling that your knees hurt or other stuff?

I'm not sure how or why anyone would go about training for higher cadence. Higher cadence = pushing less hard = easier, at least for me. Not sure why you'd need to train for that?

Higher cadence = pushing less hard = easier, at least for me. Not sure why you'd need to train for that?

Endurance.

The why is simple - more efficient.

The how is more tricky than it sounds.

Higher cadence = pushing less hard = easier, at least for me. Not sure why you'd need to train for that?

Is that a troll? I'm going to bite anyway. Higher Cadence = Pushing less hard [b]more often[/b], which is where the hard work comes in.

I don't understand the physics of it, but when I was singlespeed 42/18, my knees hurt, badly, after 100km. I've since reduced the gear to something spinnier and my knees don't hurt anymore, although the furthest I've gone is 60km. I think its fairly widely accepted that sitting in high gears puts nasty stresses on the knees.

"The how is more tricky than it sounds."

Get on a turbo trainer with cadence sensor.

I naturally spin quite slow, it turns out around 75-80 rpm. Since using a turbo and setup plans I now naturally pedal around the 90 rpm level. I still cant spin above 110rpm comfortably though. There are turbo programmes out there that use that type of cadence but it will never be for me.

Check your saddle height. I find a higher saddle feels good when grinding up hill but awful when spinning along on the flat.

Higher Cadence = Pushing less hard more often, which is where the hard work comes in

Pushing less hard more often is generally easier tho.

As an experiment, find a hill and try pedalling up it in a massive gear, I mean really big - like one pedeal stroke evey 4 seconds or so.

Then try it in a decent gear at 80rpm.

Which is easier? Ok so it's an extreme example but the sweet spot is somewhere between say 60-70 and 90-100 depending, I suspect, on your physique.

There's a very simple way of training your body to spin an easier gear.

Put a 66" fixed gear onto your road bike and go out for some rides. After the initial frustration that you're spinning out and going too slowly you may find yourself getting rather fond of it. When I were a nipper all cycling clubs rode 66" fixed on their winter club runs. 70 to 80 miles each sunday would set you up nicely for spring training.

I always listen to the tyre noise to see if I'm pedalling nicely. If you hear "Zhh zhh zhh zhh" you are mashing the pedals. Keep the upper body still and "ankle" until you get a constant "zhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".

Put a 66" fixed gear onto your road bike

What is that in real numbers?

On a 700x23mm 42:16 gives 69" and 42:17 gives 65"

Pushing less hard more often is generally easier tho.

I think this is far too simple a model. You will find if you spin quicker that your heart rate will rise higher. Try spinning up a hill and then do it at a slower cadence and monitor heart rate. The point of spinning is that you can recover quicker to do it more often, where are pushing a big gear will tire your muscles out.

I just spin a big gear, best of both worlds.

think this is far too simple a model

It is, but I really CBA to type it all out AGAIN (this came up a couple of days ago).

Your muscles are complicated things. Pushing harder fatigues them much more than pushing softer. So if you push twice as hard half as often you'll last far less time despite having generated the same amount of power for the same time. Which is what my hill climbing example was intented to point out.

There is a limit though - simply moving your legs up and down on their own takes energy and the more and faster you have to move them the more energy is wasted simply moving your legs (energy not going into the wheel). So in theory the smaller your legs are the less energy is wasted on moving them up and down and the higher your optimum cadence will be. Optimum being where you balance the lost energy of moving your legs against the benefits of pusing less hard on the pedals.

Oh, looks like I did type it all out again. Ah well 🙂

For me, comparing perceived exertion vs actual power generated seems to point to 80-85rpm as being optimum, but then I have large legs.

I just spin a big gear, best of both worlds.

swoon.

Wish i hadn't asked now! 😉
Bike set up is good so not worried about that. Pedal float and shoes are fine, knees are fine when riding just a bit sore afterwards - this could be down to not stretching or warming down.

Bike set up is good so not worried about that.

Out of interest how do you know that? I thought so too until I had a fitting which changed just about every aspect of my positioning. Knees feel much better now and the roll has definitely reduced to near minimal now.