Cadence equals Speed?
littleking02
Posts: 132
I was told last weekend by a member of my team that, to go faster i need to find the right gearing combination followed by consistent cadence. Does that also mean consistent speed for a long period of time? can you have hight cadence and fast pace in a flat road? so basically does cadence in other word mean speed?
ITS BY DOING WHAT EVER, THAT YOU BECOME WHOEVER!
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Based on gearing - it can.
100rpm in a high gear won't make you go nearly as fast as 100rpm in a low gear.
Think of a car - if you put it in 1st gear and rev the engine to 7000rpm, you won't be going nearly as fast as when the engine is in 5th gear doing 7000rpm.
So, without making the gearing easier, by upping your cadence, you will up your speed. If you have to change the gears (make it easier) to up the cadence, then you may not be increasing your speed.
Most people find that a higher cadence/lower gear option will not tire your legs as much as a bigger gear/lower cadence.
Make sense?
Generally if you had no bigger gear to go to, you would need to pedal faster to go any faster.
I race at over 30 mph with a average cadence of around 90 rpm, that cadence will be below and over this during the race however depending on terrain and wind. You can quite easily have a high cadence and a fast pace on a flat road if you like that fast cadence (then again what is a high cadence?).
If you want to go faster you need more power*. If you don't have any more power you wont go faster. You can assume that power is a constant for any rider. You can train to add a little more but basically you have what you have.
Cadence pedalling is a means of using that power efficiently over long periods of time. It prevents fatigue.
You lower your gear and increase your rate of pedalling. The power output is the same but the force on the pedals is less.
For high cadence pedalling you need a crank of appropriate length, not too long.
You also need muscles of the correct type. Sprinters have different muscle type to marathon runners. It seems to be method favoured by non-sprinters.
High cadence sprinting is a bit different, you are riding into the lactic acid threshold and not interested in endurance.
(*or less weight or less drag)
To the OP. What he was meaning is you need to find a pedaling speed (cadence) that you are comfortable in and can hold then use the gears to enable you to hold the cadence as the terain changes. Not an exact science as you will find you use a slower cadence on hills and probably even slower out of the saddle. You need to find a comfortable range, usually between 60 and 120 rpm but mostly around 90rpm. In a RR you will need faster cadence as Monty says. It is much easier to whip the pace up when needed.
So - gets to point eventually - the analogy between a car engine & legs isn't strictly relevant. As stated, it's the muscle fibres that have the effect, and experience from many sources all directs us to the idea that higher cadences provide for better & more consistent power output on a bike. But you don't need to pour more fuel down your throat to do the higher cadence like an engine would.
For all that, aim to hit a consistent cadence of at least 85 and build up to over 90. The top boys are hitting 120 as their norm. For some of us that's not an achievable target, nor is it neccesarily a valid target, not for the cycling that I do. Below 80 isn't good though for road biking, and that's what we discuss on this sub-forum.
Happy Christmas anyway.
Change to a much lower gear than you would normally use.
Gradually spin up your cadence. If you increase it slowly you will be more attuned to the feel.
Keep ramping up the cadence until it feels uncomfortable or you are rocking about on the saddle and try and stabilize yourself. Keep pedalling like that for a minute with your upper body relaxed.
If you do this every session your legs will get the message that they can work faster.
Erm, yeah. I got it backwards! I thought 53x11 was a low gear and 53x27 a high gear. :oops: