I have a hard time keeping it there and am much more comfortable in the 70s. I have done good bike splits in the mid 70s.
I saw Lionel Sanders did his record at 78 (I’m no Lionel so it may not be fair to compare against him).
But I suspect that lower cadence uses too much muscular power when it could be moved more to cardio - at least that’s what Hunter Allen says. (https://ironmanhacks.com/interviews/hunter-allen/) Full discolure: That’s my site and I interviewed him.
But he’s saying with that lower cadence our runs will be much better and that makes sense.
And that getting it up to 90 or so is just a habit/practice thing. Does anybody have any thoughts on this?
I know I did in fact manage to raise my running cadence up to around 175 and that was just through practice…but with the bike it seems harder.
I believe most articles and studies that I’ve seen suggest that there’s no optimal cadence and that each person has their own optimal cadence.
In the 00’s, it was though 90s were optimal to save your legs for the run. Thinking was high rpm = less power per revolution = less muscle fatigue.
There was also though that lower cadence led to more knee issues.
I’m pretty sure both of those have been debunked in the last 10 years, and as you say, no optimal cadence.
This difference than running, where apparently for efficiency 180 is “optimal”.
However, same thing here. 180 spm was backed into. It was an observation of a very small number of olympic athletes at the 1984 games by Jack Daniels. N=46. It just happened that all of the runners had 180 spm ± . So people took it to mean 180 was best, when it was just best for those particular elite runners.
a cadence of 90 is just a number. It’s not really relevant to anything, and the “optimal” cadence will change quite a bit depending on the situation.
in general:
higher power means higher cadence
higher variability means higher cadence (e.g. group rides / sprints)
longer durations (and lower power) - lower cadence
so for me, a long steady ride will often be in the 85-88 range (average), Sprinting is at 120-130 rpm and up. Haven’t done a road race in quite a few years, but there my cadence was always in the 95-100 'ish range (higher for crits than RR’s) TT’s in the low 90’s. etc.
It depends on how the engine is built and the fuel being used at the time! Even the fuel in the analogy (power zone on the bike) is relevant in the analogy.
Even with diesels, power and rpm are relevant as demands increase.
I think the common element is that to keep the forces required from doubling while maintaining the same rpm…you increase the rpm to limit those forces.
Cruising at 70% of your ftp the forces are half what they are bruising up a hill during the weeknight worlds ride.
Run cadence, if I’m reading the interwebs correctly, gravitates toward the higher end for the purpose of limiting the force wasted to elevate your body vertically each stride instead of moving forward. Pretty sure some run pods can measure your power application running as a % forward, % upwards, % side to side. So you can work on your run form to optimize the % forward.
Not that it means anything - I am a FOP age group cyclist. At my last IM my average cadence was 79. My last sprint my cadence was 85. For a typical ~50 mile training ride my average is 78 - 82.
Whatever works for you is the best cadence, however…
If you plan to race something besides a TT (bike portion of a Triathlon) then having the ability to quickly and efficiently change your cadence is a good skill to have. It isn’t as important as it once was, with the advent of electronic shifting and 2x11 (12) drive chains, but if you need to jump on someone’s wheel quickly and stay there it is much better to be able to up your cadence quickly over trying to shift. Same goes with short steep climbs - 10%+ grade for 20 or 30 meter. If you want to stay with the pack you need to be able to stand and grind out big watts at a low RPM for a few seconds. Taking a moment to shift the front end and then spin will get you dropped.
But I’m still grappling with the idea that a higher cadence could result in a better run. Or, more like, a low cadence may not be beneficial to the run…
I have lowered my cadence over the last 12 months went from a mid 90 to a high 70. Found for me my legs felt better off the bike. With that my HR came down, though this could be an overall fitness improvement. I’ve increased my watts/speed in the process and feel comfortable just grinding a higher gear.
That many slow old people seem to have very, very low cadence- especially while running.
Hey, I resemble that remark.
My guess is that because many older people have slower reaction times- they actually believe that their cadence is still high.
The flip side of this might be that :
focussing on maintaining an actually high cadence (as opposed to a perceived high cadence) - might offset one of the disadvantage of getting old.
Since I was one of those “slow old people”, I think one main reason is simply ignorance. When I started running half marathons three years ago I didn’t know anything about cadence. I mistakenly thought that a low cadence meant you saved energy → less steps = less energy. I thought the old guys with the faster cadence were just in that much better shape then me (okay, they probably were/are).
When I started researching and found out higher cadence = less energy, I did a full month of cadence training to get my race cadence up to 180. When I had low cadence, I just couldn’t seem to get faster. Now with the higher cadence I’m progressively getting faster at a rate that I think is reasonable. I know because I’m “old” I won’t continue to get faster forever, but I think I have about 3-5 years to continue to improve.
Can’t find a link to the article but from a triathlon perspective I read pros cadence varied depending on the race distance, so 70-80ish for Ironman up to 95 plus for sprint. Same article said put new cyclists on a bike and most will naturally have a very low cadence as that’s what they find most efficient.
The 90rpm thing comes from pure cyclesport, where others have already said it enables racers to respond to attacks much better. Surely for triathlon use the cadence for you that keeps the cardiovascular cost as low as possible without creating too much muscle damage. It’s easy to experiment on the trainer and watch your HR spike when you try to maintain same power at a higher cadence.
Brett Sutton did quite an interesting article on his trisutto blog, advocating that amateurs who don’t log the hours to develop souplesse are even better off at a lower cadence, so if you like 70 stick to 70!
I tend to average 90-100 cadence even over a few hours. Not sure why, it’s just what I did before I ever started to think about cadence, had numbers, watched pro cycling or even rode with others. It’s just what my legs wanted to do. My legs followed the natural rhythm in my head I suppose. My last century cadence was 88 for example
I do know overgear work is common amongst pros, Tim Don was a big proponent of it and seeing the Daniela ryf clip there was interesting. I’ll have to give it a go. Out of free will of course, I won’t be taking cable cutters to my rear derailleur anytime soon haha
I do wonder what is ‘best’, and I think there’s a lot of difficulty in concluding that’s it’s an abstract thing, unique to an individuals physiology. It’s more human of us to think there is some optimum
Do some steady state erg work on the trainer and play with cadence on different days. I spent years trying to get my cadence up up 90,… I later noticed that at 75 rpm, my hr is 10-15 bpm lighter. All my best bikes (and runs) have come from low cadence races where I get off the bike with a lower hr
Can’t quite recall but these both kind of say the same thing, in that optimum cadence for triathlon varies on race distance based on individual efficiency, ie most people use a higher cadence when racing shorter.
I’ve spent the last year focussing on around 80rpm for 70.3. Always used to be a 90rpm plus rider. Has definately helped me build more leg strength for same power at lower HR. 3 or 4 X 20 min on turbo at 70-80 rpm 85% ftp is a good workout. Only caveat is I think I’ll struggle with higher cadence when/if early season sprint races happen next year!
