"I do think it's at the very low range for most people but there have been guys like Gonchar, Grabsch etc winning tt worlds with around that cadence so I don't think it's as absurd as you think that some very fast people are riding around 85-90rpm."

yes, and as i said before, let's talk about these two whom you mention. i'm a patient guy. i can talk about the exceptions to the rule all you want, for as long as you want. but, in the end, it's only fair that at some point we talk about the rule.

"You seem to have a hard time accepting that things are not working in exactly the same way for everyone."

bjorn, we call this a "straw man." this is when you ascribe to me a theme or view that i don't have, and never did have. this is the second time you've done this to me in this thread. that's a bad habit. hard core republicans do this. not enlightened swedes ;-)

i think the distinction between us is this: regarding cadence (as well as bike fit) i believe there's a collection of data points around a center, and that the deviation is sufficiently small that, statistically, we can identify a norm. as far as i can tell, you don't think we can identify a norm that is worth emulating or even noticing (as regards cadence).

fine.

we'll just have to disagree, unless i can amass and present enough data to persuade you. and even then, i'm pissing up a rope and i know this going in, because you are one of those cadence outliers and i think you are, at least in part, defending your outlier-ness. and i can respect that, because, your n=1 experiment with cadence has elicited results that prove you an outlier (albeit from a non-existent norm).

and that's also fine.

let us say that, for some reason, you really are better pedaling a cadence 5 or 10 beats slower than the norm. i still think there's a norm and evidence that supports a norm (even tho you don't). just as with swim technique, and nutrition, and modern medicine, and just about every other endeavor, the norm certainly can be ignored. that's your freedom. but i think the norm is, by most people reading this thread, ignored at their own peril, and as the stakes go up the peril increases.

fortunately, ignoring bike cadence norms does not carry with it the peril attached to ignoring your doctor's advice about, say, a recommended chemotherapy regimen. accordingly, you have the freedom to freestyle your own cadence.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Of course, these folks are putting out 400 or more watts for, usually, much less than an hour. Optimum cadence tends to be higher at higher wattages. Athletes who are putting out less than 300 watts for 4 to 5 hours or so should not be trying to emulate professional cyclists in their cadence.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

"Show me one other person who rides at a steady cadence of 84 and reliably beats the field by 20 minutes."

well, i've been a triathlete for 30 years, almost as long as you ;-) i have a lot of examples i can give you.

but, what i'm saying -- and hang in there with me, frank, because you spent about 11 years studying this, and this is what the first half of your professional life depended on -- i don't care what any single person does. dave winfield, magnificent baseball player. but. that hitch in his stroke. is that what you want to teach little leaguers?

can you identify a sameness about ted williams all the way through to tony gwynn and, today, maybe a player like joe mauer? can you find a sameness about the world's best pole vaulters? in speed skating? is there a deviation from this sameness? yes. however, when you see this deviation, i think you have to ask yourself a question: is the deviation warranted? is the deviation what makes this person good? or is this deviation a handicap that the person overcomes? and, is this deviation worth emulating by the rest of the folks who're coming up in that sport?

i find it noteworthy that, in kona, the women have gotten predictably faster on the run over the past 20 years as the sport has progressed and grown. but they have not enjoyed, as a group, that same progression on the bike. for example, excluding the two marvelous out-front rides by the male and female bike split winners, the men had about 15 riders all within 10 minutes of each other. the women had maybe 4, and that's because, i think, there doesn't exist among the women that sense of consensus; they routinely ride with a wild disparity of positions, cadences; they don't see a norm, don't rally 'round it, don't know it exists. the men are, as a group, exhibit much more attention to detail about the science of the bike, and if the women did the same we'd see that same grouping as we see in the men's field.

understanding the sameness about people is the backbone of modern medicine. in sport, we seem to believe this, except in triathlon. even in triathlon we believe this about training and nutrition. but for some reason some folks are hell bent on rebelling when it comes to the bike. and when you bring up today's winner and say, "let's emulate her because she won by a lot," then, how is that different than any one-off in medicine?

bike fit, bike cadence, ought to be like any other endeavor: if you want to understand "good," then identify what good people do. chrissie's position is right in there, it's very close to what other of the best riders do. her cadence, otoh, is a few beats lower. is this a good thing for her? or is this a bad thing for her? i don't know (and neither do you). but what i do know is that it's lower than the norm established by the best male triathletes, and this norm ought to be the default. you need to find a good reason why we should vary from the default, in high jump, in free throw shooting, in medicine, and in cycling cadence.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"Of course, these folks are putting out 400 or more watts for, usually, much less than an hour."

i'm pretty sure those hour record holders were riding very, very, very close to a full hour ;-)

"Athletes who are putting out less than 300 watts for 4 to 5 hours or so should not be trying to emulate professional cyclists in their cadence."

coupla things here, frank. first, almost no athlete today rode 300 watts. but, this is beside the point. what matters is not what the power output is, but what the effort level is. and, you're right! your cadence should not be the same in a 5hr event as it is in a 1hr event. you might want to reference earlier in this thread the cadence i'm saying is typically used by a top pro male triathlete in kona? (i noted it several times.)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Well, this brings me to my second question:

Isn't this whole debate a futile effort?
We can agree that there is a grouping of people that seems to make up the "rule", and there are some who are exceptions.
When we look at someone and criticize them, we really have no idea if they are the rule or the exception. There is no way that we could know.
So we could say they would be faster if they followed the "norm", and we could be right, but there is also the possibility that it just isn't true. They could be an exception as well.

Maybe Chrissie is more efficient with a low cadence, maybe she could be faster with a higher cadence.
The only way to find out would be to change what she's doing, and that could be a huge risk. It could make her even faster, but it could also hurt her race quite a bit.
What she's doing now is obviously working for her, so what incentive is there to change it?

I will accept that her cadence is lower than the best male triathletes, but it should be as I suspect she is not putting out as much power as the best male triathletes. As I said earlier, the science is pretty clear that the most efficient cadence tends to vary with power. The more power one is putting out the higher the most efficient cadence. It would probably slow Chrissie down if one tried to bring her cadence up to the most powerful male pros because it would probably be less efficient for her (one can't tell for sure without testing but I'll bet Chrissie is where she is because she did testing with Brett).

The problem with most amateurs is they try to do what you advocate, they try to ride at the same cadence as the best pros (the pro cyclists, that is, let alone the pro triathletes). This is way too high for them as they are probably putting out only half the power. If you want to ride like Lance you better train like Lance, otherwise better spend some time finding out what is best for you.

IMHO, most athletes ride at way too high a cadence for max sustainable power and if they were to train themselves to ride at a lower cadence they would probably see their power and speed come up for the same effort. Less time on the bike means more energy left for the run.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Chrissie is not an exception. The science is pretty clear that most people ride at a cadence that is higher than their most efficient. Scientists have puzzled over this for years as to why this is the case. I think it is simply a case of folklore and copy cat training. Chrissie has just had a coach with the smarts to figure this out and she had the smarts to listen to him. If she had taken up with someone like Carmichael or Watson they would have had her riding like a cyclist and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Fine, but the science is pretty clear that optimum cadence varies with power, not with effort. Since sustainable power also varies with time we would expect that the optimum cadence should also vary with time.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Slowman no disrespect you are in the IM hall of fame and know more about bike fitting that probably anyone on the planet, but you really need to understand that triathlon is triathlon and taking leads off the individual sports is simply not right. Swimming is done with open water with wet suits, cycling needs to be done with the constant thought that it's setting you up to run, and running is done on tired legs. Yet when you look for the best way to do anyone of them you look at the individual sports, not at the best in our sport.

I don't think the onus on Brett Sutton to show why his way is correct when results so obviously show that they are. Also he knows that most 'experts' from single sports that get into triathlon just can't be told so he doesn't even try.

Some things here leap out at me.

Using hour record attempts as a template isn't a great idea. The style of riding between an outdoor bike split and a velodrome are completely different. There have been a comparably low sample rate as well. 20 odd riders over a 100 years isn't ideal.

Is comparing pro's to age groupers wise ? The top pro's are likely to be physiologically suited (its unlikely they would have been pro's otherwise in the first place) whereas MOP riders will have many 'faults' that may require differences in set up or riding style. Unlike a top drawer pro, if a MOP rider has a comparably low Vo2 max, would it not make more sense to ge them to ride a lower cadence whereby the Vo2 max strain is reduced ? (excuse my wording on that one)

Cadence is only one part of the human/machine interface. Trying to isolate an 'ideal' whilst ignoring power applied/ muscle fibre physiology/ crank length & bike fit angles seems like we're only looking at the topping, not the whole pie. A similiarity in one characteristic doesn't make it right or statistically viable.

I don't think I'm the one making straw man arguments here but fine. Your argument, unless my reding comprehension is really bad, have been that people are more or less the same and should pedal at more or less the same cadence. Am I right? One of my points have been that there seem to have been enough outliers performing at the absolute world class level to prove that this might not be entirely true. Remember that Cancellara and Armstrong are outliers too but somehow it seems more ok for them to be so than someone using a slightly lower cadence than the norm. And yes we can talk about the rule again but I have already stated what I think the most common cadence bracket is at that level so not sure what more to say. There actually are countless examples of world class cyclists using around 90rpm's so I'm not sure what to discuss there really. A Swedish pro cyclist and exercise physiologist who has done a lot of research on power said that as long as you're in a range of 80-100rpm for shorter tt's there are not a lot of things within that you can do that negatively effects you're performance. Something to think about.

I'm not even an outlier anymore so your argument there doesen't hold up as I average around 88-90rpm for halfs and a bit more for shorter tt's the last couple of years. I also have enough experience riding with a power meter to know that I can produce similar power at threshold within a range of 5-7rpm's. In fact the only real difference I've felt at all since switching from very low cadences is that I can produce a little more power at threshold when riding at 90rpm rather than 75rpm. But even I think there's some sort of limit to what cadences you can ride efficiently at so that's not surprising. At lower efforts there's absolutely no difference whatsoever in any matter though. Maybe you should ride with a power meter yourself again and experience these things without just going on feel and assuming a certain cadence is superior.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

"The science is pretty clear that most people ride at a cadence that is higher than their most efficient. Scientists have puzzled over this for years as to why this is the case."

scientists stoppled puzzling in 1992. ahlquist.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

"I don't think I'm the one making straw man arguments here but fine. Your argument, unless my reding comprehension is really bad, have been that people are more or less the same and should pedal at more or less the same cadence. Am I right?"

that's much better. "more or less" is not "exactly the same," in either english or swedish i'll wager.

"Maybe you should ride with a power meter yourself again and experience these things without just going on feel and assuming a certain cadence is superior."

i used to ride assiduously with a power meter, and still would if i my personal aspirations were more competitive than they are. riding with a power meter gave me my first inclinations that my cadence pre power meter was too low.

if, at some point, you'd like to know more about the science of this (not my interpreting physiology, rather the published science) i'll be happy to share it offline. there's a reason why IM athletes ride 84, pro cyclists TT at 95-100, and so forth. but, i'm not going to belabor this here. even tho you're saying yourself that you've upped your cadence maybe 10 or 15 beats to the very predictable and typical 88-90 for 70.3, i'm surprised by the lack of intellectual curiosity as to why this is.

but what i will note is that there is often (maybe usually) a difference between pros and their hardened views during their careers, and pros near their ends of their careers. as examples, not only you, but jonas, have been steadfastly stubborn about your bike positions, and your cadences, only to return in a subsequent year with different cadences and different positions. in other words, your technique changes. only your certainty remains the same ;-)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Except in the case of fixing a flat with a CO2 inflator, right?

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

"I'd be more interested in hearing you comment on what I and others have been hinting at with regards to the litterature seemingly indicating that absolute power has more of an impact on cadence."

what studies are those? there are probably two dozen studies, from the 70s forward, suggesting, as frank day noted, that the energetic optimum was in the neighborhood of 60rpm to 70rpm (depending on rider intensity), that is, if you're simply measuring oxygen consumption, aerobic fatigue, etc., that slow is better than fast. this, altho "freely chosen" cadences always seemed to be around 90rpm in these studies.

then ahlquist came along with a game changer, and was the first to posit that muscle fiber recruitment was a key, essentially saying that we must look at neuromuscular fatigue, not simply aerobic fatigue; the problem being the higher rate of fuel consumption when type II fibers are recruited -- which is what happens as you lower the cadence, increasing the torque required to do the work, which increases type II fiber recruitment.

so, you pick your poison. pedal faster and stress your aerobic system. pedal slower and stress your neuromuscular system. somewhere in there is the balance and, i think, this is why cadence rates change based on intensity.

i think if -- again -- you simply look at what riders tend to do, you'll see that they pedal much faster cadences as their intensity increases. you yourself, i'm guessing, pedal 3 to 6 beats faster in a 70.3 than you do in an IM, and faster yet in an oly. if you don't, okay, but that's the norm.

no, i don't think people should emulate pure cyclists as regards cadence. rather, they should simply note what i'm pointing out: that those who only cycle vary their cadences based on the effort levels. pure cyclists riding a pursuit have a typical (and very high) cadence, as do those riding a longer road TT, as do those riding RAAM. i think triathletes might want to take note of that, because, while there is no reason to say, "look, there, basso's riding 96rpm, so i will too," there are these trends that are apparent prima facie.

"And btw, I have pretty much never seen you give an inch to anyone in a discussion here so it seems like being stubborn is at least one thing we have in common."

i've changed my views quite a lot over the decade that slowtwitch has been around, but, you've got a point in this sense: i have two core beliefs: 1) that most reasonably trim and fit AG athletes can technically swim, bike, run, eat, transition, drive to the race, make love, raise their kids, just like the pros do; they just have smaller engines; and, 2) that if a large percentage of the world's best athletes do something a particular way, you deviate from that norm at your own peril. i'm challenged on these points at least monthly and, you're right, i doubt seriously i'm ever going to come off that.

i'm challenged on these points because it's human nature to focus on the outliers. if you say, "fat people tend to die younger than skinny people," the responses will be, "but what about [fat guy who lived a long time]." and i'm always interested in talking about the exceptions. but, they're still exceptions, and most folks reading here are far better off following the rule.

as i said, we'll be trying to lay our hands on the power files of the riders yesterday. if 8 of the 10 we may get show a cadence within 2 beats one way or the other of 84, i don't expect this to impress you. nevertheless, it would be in keeping with the power files i've so far seen over the years.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Surely this is a result of there being a much wider disparity of swim times among the top women? All the top men bar a couple of 'outliers' exit the swim within a minute or two of each other, close enough to catch a ride on the pro train. The top women are all over the place, a few in just over 50 minutes but plenty around (and over) the hour. It would take a lot more than a change of cadence or position for these girls to catch up with the front train any time early enough in the race to experience the progression that you are predicting.

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Richard Melik | I work for the following companies | Zwift.com | Freespeed Bike Fit (UK)
Manager | David McNamee

for the same power output, wouldn't she have been more cooked riding at a higher cadence given the higher heart rate it would have caused? I'm guessing the "cooking" had more to do with poor pacing than cadence and her sub par marathon (by her high standards) showed that.

Sutton's theory is based on the lower heart rate cost and that it is easier to raise the cadence into the run than lower it and the results speak for themselves.

Btw, I'm pretty sure sutton has stated 80-84 rpm is about right for the bike so you're pretty much in agreement anyway!

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www.true-motion.com Triathlete Casual Wear since 2007
(Twitter/FB)

"for the same power output, wouldn't she have been more cooked riding at a higher cadence given the higher heart rate it would have caused?"

does that mean if she pedaled 5 beats slower she's have been less "cooked"?

"Sutton's theory is based on the lower heart rate cost"

and carmichael's theory is based on the lower neuromuscular cost. this is why cadence increases or decreases based on intensity. spinning the crank at any power carries with it an aerobic cost. if your intensity is sufficiently low, and you can do the work without much type II fiber recruitment, why pedal the higher cadence and pay the higher aerobic cost? but, if the power required is sufficiently high, then, (the theory goes), pedal a faster cadence and, yes, you'll pay a somewhat higher aerobic cost, but a lower neuromuscular cost, and this will pay benefits near the end of a long event.

but i think it's best not to get so into the tall weeds of theory that people talk past each other. if i say, "pedal faster!," and you say, "no, pedal slower!" but i'm saying pedal faster than 75 and you're saying pedal slower than 95, maybe we're really advocating the same cadence for ironman racing.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Higher absolute wattages or higher percentage of an individual's threshold power? If women's "absolute" performance is limited (compared to their male counterparts) due to VO2max and other physiological differences, yet they still ride the same or similar "relative" power outputs as a percentage of that "absolute," then something that's optimum for those "higher [relative] wattages" for males will also be optimum for females, too, no?

Berend

"Except in the case of fixing a flat with a CO2 inflator, right?"

Hey mister your talking about the woman I love! Sure your right but still.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

Oy. This is the kind of thread that hurts my head. I can't even read it all. Too many opionions, exceptions, dependencies, and but ifs. Maybe I'll try to read through it again, but for the moment, I'm confused and will stick with my 92 rpm.

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Proud to post only occasionally.

http://tribomber.wordpress.com

it is amazing how people outside the SlowTwitch community are aware of what goes on here. http://thetriathlonbook.blogspot.com/.../paulos-mailbag.html

Huh? Alquist showed what? The fact that efficiency goes down when one has to recruit more fast twitch fibers? That does nothing to my argument because fast twitch recruitment goes up for both too slow cadence and too fast cadence. People should try to race at optimum cadence. Try to ride your bike unloaded at a cadence or 200 and tell me you are not recruiting any fast twitch fibers even though you are putting out zero power. The reason I mention that, in general, lower cadences are better is most are riding at too high a cadence for optimum efficiency. But, a cadence of 10 is not more efficient than a cadence of 70-90, just as a cadence or 140 is not more efficient than a cadence of 70-90. Many things can influence what the optimum cadence is for any individual including what the mix of fiber types they have in their muscles. But, the most important one is probably what power they are riding at. To say that all riders should be riding at the same cadence as what the pro men have gravitated to simply ignores what the science says, IMHO.

In Reply To:

so, you pick your poison. pedal faster and stress your aerobic system. pedal slower and stress your neuromuscular system. somewhere in there is the balance and, i think, this is why cadence rates change based on intensity.

pedal faster and stress your aerobic system. Pedal slower and stress your neuromuscular system? A statement that makes no biological sense to me.

In Reply To:

i think if -- again -- you simply look at what riders tend to do, you'll see that they pedal much faster cadences as their intensity increases. you yourself, i'm guessing, pedal 3 to 6 beats faster in a 70.3 than you do in an IM, and faster yet in an oly. if you don't, okay, but that's the norm.

but, it makes perfect sense because they can sustain higher powers for the shorter periods and the optimum cadence goes up with higher power. If they didn't change their cadence for these different efforts one should question their tactics.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

"Huh? Alquist showed what? The fact that efficiency goes down when one has to recruit more fast twitch fibers?"

what you pointed out several posts up was the literature in the 70s and 80s finding that the energetic optimal was 20 or 30 beats lower than freely chosen cadence, and that academia was at a loss to explain this delta. i agree. and i pointed to ahlquist, who, in '92, explained the delta.

"fast twitch recruitment goes up for both too slow cadence and too fast cadence."

from ahlquist: In conclusion, cycling at the same metabolic cost at 50 rather than 100 rev·min–1 results in greater type II fiber glycogen depletion. This is attributed to the increased muscle force required to meet the higher resistance per cycle at the lower pedal frequency. These data are consistent with the view that force development as opposed to velocity of contraction determines the degree of type II fiber recruitment when the metabolic cost of exercise is held constant.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman