i think cadence is worth looking at. working on. changing, even. it's not that you can't win with an unoptimized cadence (assuming there is such a thing) just like you can win with an unoptimized bike or bike position or tire pressure.

but like crank length it's hard to find conclusions you can hang your hat on if confined to what you discover in a study.

what if you looked at files of those competing in a timed race like the ironman? you take cohorts like the pro men and women, what is the size of the cohort required for relevance? what if you found that the standard deviation was 3.5 in a cohort comprising 25 or 30? how small would that standard deviation need to be to demonstrate relevance? i don't know.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Woah, lucky you! I ride 86" at SQT sessions (limited to 88") and I'm regularly destroyed by people even though I'm spinning 140rpm!

Unfortunately (or otherwise) I didn't wear a HR Monitor. Because I don't wear glasses on a bike I can't see the darn thing.
The only reason I could see the other info is because it was on a large screen relatively close to me.

My only clue was that I wasn't panting....but that is hardly conclusive.
Next time I'll have to hook one up. (and wear glasses)
That would, after all, be a pretty conclusive indicator as to which was the more efficient route, for me.

That range seems high...for me on short intensive efforts 10mile TT or sprint, I am around 95-100, 40km 93-97, 70.3 90-94, and IM around 88-93. I can't imagine the body being efficient over such a wide range, even with focused training on improving economy at high or low cadences. Is there any other sport where humans work at such a wide range as what has been suggested here, and by Sutton? Seems we are designed to work optimally within a fairly tight range...

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Interesting thoughts.

Let me share that in the 80's when I started all of this and cycling was rather new although somewhat natural for me, I trained with a couple of Euro-Pro cyclists. Well, "train with" may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I at least tagged along. This was before any fancy gadgets, HR, power, etc. The rudimentary cyclometers (mine attached at the front skewer - I had good eyes back then!) sometimes had a cadence function. The simple lesson I learned from these guys was when your legs hurt and lungs don't pick an easier gear and spin faster. When your lungs hurt but legs don't, pick a harder gear and spin slower. If both hurt you are fine :-)! Then, just following these simple adjustments your body over time will finds what is optimal for you.

Interestingly, I sometimes change screens on my garmin so I can't see power or cadence and just go out and ride using the above protocol and when I download the data I tend to find that I hit optimal, for me, numbers.

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David
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Have you looked at crank torque? Do you think crank torque is worth looking at? That's a real question, not just for you but for everyone else reading this thread. If cadence is so important, and you know (as I'm sure you do) that power is proportional to cadence * crank torque, then why focus exclusively on cadence? Because there are endless threads on cadence but almost none on crank torque. Why do you think that is?

Here's a second question: for a given power, are the self-selected cadences you use on, say, a cheap mag trainer vs. a fluid trainer or a wind-turbine trainer the same? For a given power, are the self-selected cadences you use on the flat vs. a 1% incline vs. a 1% decline the same? If not, should you work on or change them? To what will you change?

I definitely feel it's very personal choice. I, for example, have a very high cadence. I just test rode the Galveston course last weekend, which is about as flat a course as you'll ever find, and I averaged 97rpm over the 56 miles, which for me, is about right. My buddy had the same ride time, about the same power numbers, and he averaged 80rpm, and we both felt great on the short run we did after.

I would be curious whether Jordan Rapp has changed his cadence over the years. And for what reasons and with what results.
Although as he is still racing I would assume some of the info might be not for public consumption, yet.

He is getting a little older and has that changed his cadence in any way.
Shorter cranks, bigger rings, ovals all could have an affect..

I am the same as DP, sprints 92-95, olympics 88-92, halfs around 85, fulls 82-85. Tested it and this is what has worked for me, that is the key thing. I think being able to vary your cadence is important.

Tight range of what though? If you have a tight cadence range then you'll have a wide variance in the force being applied to the pedals. Personally I find it easier to change my cadence than how hard I'm pressing on the pedals (its certainly a faster response).

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All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

"Have you looked at crank torque? Do you think crank torque is worth looking at?"

now you're jogging my memory. somebody - maybe it was you - some years ago brought this up and felt this was the important metric. yeah, why not. i'd like to hear the argument. maybe cadence is a roundabout way of getting to what the important metric is.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

We know that with decreasing cadence for the same workload there is increased glycogen depletion in type II fibers.
Common practice is to decrease cadence as workload decreases. (Prologue TT cadence is higher than ironman)

I've wondered how crank torque changes as the cadence: power relationship changes. ie how narrow of a window do we self-select crank torques and if that is potentially driven by fiber recruitment.

Obviously when we talk about large power ranges (e.g. high cadence for prologue vs. lower cadence for ironman) there is going to differences in crank torque.

However, is there a self selection to similar crank torques for smaller bins, say 180 to 210 watts, 210 to 240, etc.

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I think this is an important point. In the "To Power Meter, or Not To Power Meter" thread, I stated that I think PM's are over rated. The reason being that I will pay attention to PE more than HR or power. Also, I've found that the fastest way over a course, for me, is to keep PE constant while varying cadence and power. The cadence changes are a function of incline. I.E. at Silverman full (2010), I was out of the saddle for about 1.5 hours of a 5.5 hour ride. When out of the saddle, my HR and power go up about 15-20%, but PE stays the same. I did that on purpose, and trained for that. (For those who don't know, Silverman was a hilly IM. I basically rode a lot of the hills out of the saddle.)

For me, the answer to RChung's question above is "yes", the self selected cadences on varying terrain do change, and I do change them, and as a result I can cover a given course faster than if I tried to hold constant cadence/power. As a result, I don't find that having a PM justifies the cost, and I'd still train based on HR and PE. I also train with highly variable cadence. I.E. there is usually one day a week where I'll ride out of the saddle for most all of a 1-1.5 hour ride (low cadence, < 55-65 RPM), yet other rides I'll do high intensity at higher cadences.

I'm curious to hear from others. Do you really target a constant cadence and power in the presence of changing terrain/wind? Do you really train at relatively constant cadence?

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2015 USAT Long Course National Champion (M50-54)

If only there were some device that recorded the data we would need to investigate that. Hmmm.

Here are data from the same rider (a domestic pro) on three different types of rides. I think he finished on the podium in the road race:


Here are data from a different rider (a very competitive masters) on a hilly TT. I think he finished 2nd.




Here is how cadence varies with hill slope for yet another different rider (a pro rider on a WorldTour stage) that included one cat 2 hill. He contested in the sprint for the stage win and finished (I think) 3rd or 4th:

I was playing around with this morning on the trainer with power and HR. Top of zone 2 HR had me at a self-selected cadence of 86 and 265 watts. If I upped the cadence into the 90s and tried to keep the same watts, my HR jumped up into zone 3 (bad). If I tried to keep the same power and HR, but dropped the cadence into the 70s, the fatigue in the legs increased greatly.

Lower the cadence too much and try to keep power the same and you get premature fatigue (through muscle burn). Up the cadence too much and try to keep power the same you get premature fatigue (through high HR). But what is your current set point for self-selected is trainable - Mine used to be around 80 for zone 2, and also about 30 watts lower with it.

Yes you can slow cadence down, but unless you lower power output with it, it will cause premature fatigue. Which is why it is correct to say to use self-selected and variable cadence... to go along with the power you are putting out at the moment. Everything is relative.

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Except that my experience tells me that the "premature fatigue" is also trainable. That was my point. My hypothesis is that people should be training a range of cadence/torque/power, and would race faster if they utilized a broader range.

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2015 USAT Long Course National Champion (M50-54)

Over the years I've lived in several different cities/states/countries. Trainers are heavy so I usually buy used and sell them when I move. Accordingly, I've owned rollers, mag trainers, wind turbine trainers, fluid trainers, and electronically braked ergometers. At the same power my self-selected cadence varies from trainer to trainer. In addition, as you can see from the plots I posted, the same rider will use different cadence depending on the type of race, or the slope. We know that riders will use different cadence if they're fresh or tired.

Some guys think that they can take the cadence they use on their particular model of indoor trainer and they should pedal like that on the road.

Some people seem to think that you should emulate the cadence of top pros on IM courses. That's similar to the (many) people who look at the cadence of folks who set the hour record on a flat velodrome using a fixed gear and think that tells them what they should be pedaling on a rolling course using a geared bike although they only produce half the power of the record setters.

Hmmm.

[Edited to make things clearer:] I think that the evidence shows that in the real world on real roads under varying conditions of wind and slope and length and fatigue, riders don't use a single set cadence. They also don't use a single set amount of power, nor a single set value of crank torque, nor do they ride at a single constant speed, nor (and I can show this, too, if you're interested) a single gear. I think that the evidence shows that riders vary all of these during a ride, especially in response to varying conditions. Good (and, as you can see from the examples I showed above, very very good) riders constantly make choices about speed, power, cadence, crank torque, and gear ratio. That's why focusing on cadence to the exclusion of these other choices is a red herring.

I have...and it was one of the things that pointed out to me (a LONG time ago) that I was "gearing limited" on a local climb. As the road got steeper, my power dropped...and it was all the result of my cadence dropping. My crank torque was constant. Put on lower gearing and I could maintain the power.

It also reinforced in my mind that cadence is a dependent variable, not an independent one :-/

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

You have snatched the pebble from my hand, grasshopper.

The Sutton article would seem to suggest this. I've been thinking of dropping my cadence in the off season as it will take a while to adapt, not something i want to do just now.

I'd say it's a bit more nuanced than that. You can say a few things equivalently:

Power = Torque*Omega, or Torque = Power/Omega, or Omega = Power/Torque

Meaning that one can explicitly/independently select target values for two of the variables, and the remaining variable will be a function of those two decisions.

So, for example, one can first choose cadence, independent of any other variable, and additionally, independently, select a target power or torque, by gear selection - and the remaining variable is a result of the first two selections.

Saying a variable "is not independent" seems to imply that it MUST be the result of first selecting some other variable, which is clearly not the case because anyone can select an arbitrary numerical value of cadence to target. It may not be the best thing to prioritize, but I find the statement as misleading as claiming that one should dogmatically target a particular cadence.

It seems to me that choosing to say this comes not from a mathematical perspective, but perhaps an implied "cadence is not [the] independent [variable of my choice]." Personally, I seem to hold a pretty consistent torque value for a target power, as I mentioned earlier in this thread.

I'm talking more in a physiological sense. Power production on a bike is really all about pedal force and tangential foot speed. Those 2 things, in concert with the terrain, demands, and equipment (i.e. crank length, gearing, wheel diameter, etc.) result in a particular cadence being "expressed".

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Welcome back.
AWOL - not ok...

My take:
One decides/chooses what acceleration is the right one in any and all situations... in response to the velocity and position relative to the competion, course, conditions and RPE.

The acceleration (+ or -) comes from the power supplied minus the power required at the current velocity.
The power supplied is the product of pedal force and pedal speed (layman version).
The perceived feedback is the "cost & consequence" of the pedal force. Core point.
The control mechanism (=dependent variable) is the cadence, the control objective (=independent variable) is the pedal force.

Clearly... :-)

Assuming the forces against the rider do not change, an increase in cadence, without changing gear, requires more force and thus more power.

A mistake many make is to change gear, increase or maintain cadence and assume they are pedalling more smoothly in perfect circles with better more efficient technique, but fail to recognise their power output has in fact not increased or remained constant but dropped.