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Re: Strange, Low-cadence experience [JoeO] [ In reply to ]
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I had a similar experience this morning, although the change in style was not nearly as drastic

Over the past year I've gone from spinning 95+, to being in the 84-88 range for most of my riding. I consciously made that change after I started doing low cadence sets in the 55-65 range. I've felt more powerful than when spinning and have made significant progress on the bike. However, I was messing around with an even lower cadence as I had come across a Cameron Watt article advocating for triathletes to adopt this pedaling style. He mentioned 75 rpm was what he started using instead of 90-95+ on the basis that Pro cyclists using this cadence spend far more time getting a 'feel for the pedals' and practicing the technique required to spin fast. A lower cadence is more easily adapted to. Not sure if I fully support that yet based on my own experience, but it seems plausible

I was cruising around 3.2-3.5 w/kg @ ~75 rpm and effort was noticeably lower, HR lower as expected. Pedal stroke felt a little smoother compared to ~85. Where I really experienced a difference was when I started to bump that up to 5-5.5 w/kg for 2-3 minutes. I'd try to maintain 78-80 for these sets and it felt more in control than when I'd do the same at around 90+

From what I've gathered so far, the higher the power the more efficient a higher cadence is. The shorter and more intense the effort, the higher your cadence should be. What I'd like to know is how do you go about setting a range for cadence so that you can say "I'll ride Zone 2 @ 70, Zone 3 @ 75 ..." and so on as it does not seem like the recommendation is to ride a narrow range of cadences for all power zones

Dominic Pollizzi

Last edited by: zestypollizzi: Jan 9, 21 7:38
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