In my opinion, anything in the 70's is too low. I try to stay above 85, and up to about 100. For me, anything under 80 is just too much effort to use.

Norm, there are reasons for running lower, medium and high cadences. I don't know of any, but I'm sure there are some!

I would guess that for most road racers, the high cadences are better...you can more quickly put out very high power (needed to match surges, blast up hills, or sprint) by using higher cadences...although it stresses the cardiovascular system more to run high cadences. This is OK in road racing, because you get to draft periodically.

If you are time trialing (and this would be true for a road racer that went off the front and was planning on staying there all day), the lower cadences seem to produce more speed at lower heartrates...a good thing. (Let's not bring Mr. Armstrong's 120 rpm tt run last year into this, he even said that was too high once he watched himself on tape. Besides, NOBODY reading this is a Mr. Armstrong!) This may be in part due to inefficiencies in a person's pedal stroke. The more pedal strokes you make per minute, the more mistakes you make per minute...unless, of course, your pedal stroke is perfect :) The downside to lower cadence may be that the muscles get tired more quickly, because they are contracting at a greater peak force.

Medium rpm's may be better than either extreme, I imagine it's up to the individual's power system. And your medium rpm may be different than my medium rpm.

In the past, on my best time trial efforts, I vascillated between the higher speed lower cadences (for me, low cadence was about 80-85) with lower speed higher cadences (for me, about 100), as first my legs tired, then my heartrate gets too high. Medium cadences simply happened as I was changing from low rpm to high. I seemed to go from high rpm directly to low, because at some point during the leg-recovering high rpm riding, I would realize my HR was climbing and my legs felt fresh again...so I would just click down a few gears to drop my rpm's to about 85 and the speed would increase. Rinse, repeat.

I would think finding an optimum rpm and effort would yield a better tt, and I'm going to try to find that optimum, but, in reality, that's what I did on my best times last year. Go out and experiment to see what is best for you....that's all that really matters to you anyway, right?

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

I used Troy Jacobsen last year for my IM coach. He did a great job and will use him this year. His website and philosophy is that the perfect run cadence is 180 foot strikes a minute which equals 90 cadence on the bike. I have seen, but don't remember where maybe Troy's, but somebody's site shows results of a study 7 percent quicker runs off the bike.

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Slow down or Go Around.

I think that for long races, it is more important to keep your muscles from being fatigued. I would tend to run higher cadences for that reason, so you wouldn't die on the run. In a sprint, you just need speed, and all you're able to generate. I'd be much more willing to punish my leg muscles with lower cadences in the short distances in exchange for the increased speed I get. The run is going to hurt in a sprint no matter what you do on the bike!

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)