The role of cadence in performance

LightningTony

Hi Guys
I would like to gather opinions from you on the role of cadence in your performance. To make things easier I want to propose a scenario that eliminates as many variables as possible, so here it is;
You are attempting the world hour record on an indoor track. You can train as much as you like on the track. You have absolute choice of gearing, wheel diameter, crank length. However once you start, for obvious reasons, that is the setup you finish with. You are already really quite fit, so your training has to address how will you get from where you are now to where you want to be, which is fastest ever!
More than one person, even very accomplished cyclists, have told me that improving cadence doesn't make you a better cyclist, and that only power output matters.
It is my belief that the only way to smash that hour record is to find your optimum gear and then pedal it as fast as you can maintain for the hour.
How do you determine your optimum gear?
Good question, it is inextricably linked to your optimum cadence. However, now that you have chosen it you cant do anything about it. You can't tweak the gradient, it is a flat track! There are no magnets or turbine blades, or friction or magnet settings. We are indoors, there is no wind. The altitude could only be changed by an earthquake!!!
Your training has started,,,
is cadence important?

Alex_Simmons/RST

LightningTony wrote:

is cadence important?

Within reasonable bounds, not particularly.

Pseudonym

LightningTony wrote:

is cadence important?

in that context, it's a bit like saying "is going faster important?"

colinsmith123

It seems my sweet-spot cadence is around the 95-105 mark. My variation on the question raised by Lightning Tony is, if my cadence is around 100, do I need to be training to improve my performance at 65-75 as well as at 115-125 mark.

If yes, then what are these differing cadence ranges doing physiologically? Which hopefully will bring us back to the original question. Is cadence important in performance?

sub55

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

LightningTony wrote:

is cadence important?

Within reasonable bounds, not particularly.

that`s a stunningly brilliant answer Alex

sub55

As long as you are not right at the extremes either end of the scale and your cadence is comfortable for you, it doesn't matter what the actual rpm is. To go quicker, you need to increase your cardio vascular systems efficiency in order to maintain that cadence for longer. To do that ,you need to put in the work.
In the scenario implied by the op , all the hours of training and analyzation will have been going on for months if not years. Which would eventually lead to the biggest gear the rider can maintain for 1 hour at the cadence the rider finds most comfortable

RChung

LightningTony wrote:

is cadence important?

Alex_Simmons/RST

sub55 wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

LightningTony wrote:

is cadence important?

Within reasonable bounds, not particularly.

that`s a stunningly brilliant answer Alex

To be honest, I thought I was being verbose.

RChung

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

sub55 wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

LightningTony wrote:

is cadence important?

Within reasonable bounds, not particularly.

that`s a stunningly brilliant answer Alex

To be honest, I thought I was being verbose.

Yes.

racingcondor

One area in which cadence is important is if you race. Drop to a cadence that is too low for you and you won't be able to match the accelerations of the bunch (leading shortly to you being at or off the back if you don't take the hint).

A powerful person with weak cardio will be able to hold the same power (at a lower cadence) output as a weak rider with good cardio. The question relevant to training is what suits each riders physiology (I strongly suspect for most amateurs even physiological tendancy doesn't matter since you're not going to hit your limit until you're borderline pro even if your body is limited by a relatively weak cardio and you're training yourself to ride at high cadence, may take longer to get there though).

Does cadence matter. Yes. Does it matter to you? Probably not.

EDIT - Having just looked at this, Alex Simmons said it all .

Tom Dean

racingcondor wrote:

One area in which cadence is important is if you race. Drop to a cadence that is too low for you and you won't be able to match the accelerations of the bunch (leading shortly to you being at or off the back if you don't take the hint).

It certainly feels like this is the case, but I suspect only when you are on the limit anyway. eg if the pace goes up by 10% is it really easier to go from 100 to 110rpm than from 80 to 88?

Not sure what you mean about 'power' vs 'cardio'.

Cornish-J

He means someone with huge leg muscles can grind a bigger gear and keep up with someone skinny but quite fit pushing a small gear at 100rpm.

imo - cadence is incredibly important, my whole training plan this winter is focused on getting the body used to 90-110 rpm all the time. Strength and power will come with more riding/training. For instance - i appreciate these guys are professionals but you have to apply the same principals and try to replicate the best in the world ... you never see cancellara on a TT grinding a 55x11 at 80rpm - he's pushing well over 100rpm all the time (difference is, he's pushing a monster gear as well).
Already after only 3 weeks of proper turbo training i find that i can very quickly get up to 90+ rpm and maintain this leg speed for what feels like all day.

Tom Dean

Cornish-J wrote:

He means someone with huge leg muscles can grind a bigger gear and keep up with someone skinny but quite fit pushing a small gear at 100rpm.

Still doesn't make sense I'm afraid, are big muscles a substitute for fitness?

sub55

Tom Dean wrote:

Cornish-J wrote:

He means someone with huge leg muscles can grind a bigger gear and keep up with someone skinny but quite fit pushing a small gear at 100rpm.

Still doesn't make sense I'm afraid, are big muscles a substitute for fitness?

NO

Tom Dean

NJK

Most cyclists self select their cadence at 80-100 rpm, so cadence isn't that important it just happens, what is important is increasing the power at which you ride at 80-100rpm.

Tom Butcher

I was at a talk by a BC coach the other day - about developing young riders - and he certainly thought that the ability to spin a gear was important. Showed some footage of Cav in bunch sprints and it was quite marked how much faster his cadence was than his opponents. The message was that BC do see developing a high cadence as part of developing a complete rider and that it helped in developing a jump on the road as well as for track riding where the advantage is more obvious. I'm not saying I was 100% convinced - why can't you jump with a lower cadence in a bigger gear - but it was food for thought - previously I'd have been more in the camp that modern gears (range and ease of shifting) had made the ability to ride at a range of cadences of minor importance.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Cadence is an outcome we happen to measure, not an input we control.

What we can control is effort level (power) and gear choice.

ut_och_cykla

I spent 9 months becoming a better 'spinner/twirler' under the guidance of a coach. At first it was difficult to maintain but after a while it got easier. Unfortunately I got slower too which was the opposite of what I wanted to obtain. Consequently its my belief that having a cadence repertoire is a good thing and can be useful sometimes, but sacrificing speed for a cadence that isnt naturally yours is counterproductive.

The Bounce

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Cadence is an outcome we happen to measure, not an input we control.

What we can control is effort level (power) and gear choice.

Taking our usual 'exact terminology' stance to suit your argument are we???

Cadence may be the measured outcome but leg speed, which most people regard as cadence, is the part of the input and we do control that.

Tom Butcher

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Cadence is an outcome we happen to measure, not an input we control.

What we can control is effort level (power) and gear choice.

See the post immediately above - of course by cadence I am referring to leg speed.

If I'm sitting on a turbo on single speed and increase leg speed there is a necessary increase in power, if I increase power there is a necessary increase in leg speed - are you arguing that we don't control leg speed in the sense we control effort or just playing with semantics ?

Alex_Simmons/RST

The Bounce wrote:

Taking our usual 'exact terminology' stance to suit your argument are we???

?
Cadence is pretty well understood as a measure of the number of revolutions per minute of the crank. Leg (well pedal) speed is simply a means to normalise cadence across different crank lengths. Referring to either doesn't change the basic principle, unless one is riding a bike with a constantly variable length crank.

The Bounce wrote:

Cadence may be the measured outcome but leg speed, which most people regard as cadence, is the part of the input and we do control that.

We can't control leg speed independently of the forces we apply* (and vice versa).

IOW for leg speed (or cadence) to change, we must in fact change effort level/power and/or the gear.

When riding along, if you don't change gear (or have a change in resistance forces such as a change in gradient), then the only way we end up pedaling faster/slower is by consciously applying more/less effort (power).

* unless you are on a electro braked ergometer that maintains a constant load irrespective of leg or wheel speed

Alex_Simmons/RST

Tom Butcher wrote:

If I'm sitting on a turbo on single speed and increase leg speed there is a necessary increase in power, if I increase power there is a necessary increase in leg speed - are you arguing that we don't control leg speed in the sense we control effort or just playing with semantics ?

It's the effort we control. The cadence is an outcome of that.

As I said before, that's because we can't control leg speed independently of the forces being applied.

Cadence is just easier to measure (and hence much more commonly measured) than are pedal forces, so we tend to think of it as independently important, when really it's (per se) a red herring.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Or put it another way...

Why does nobody say - "let's do some pedaling drills at an average effective pedal force of 15 Newtons?", yet that is no different to suggesting one focus on particular cadence. They are not independent of each other.

fish156

Presumably every rider had an optimal cadence, be that an unique value or a range? By "optimal" I mean that cadence at which sustained power output is maximum. The goal then for the OP's hour record rider is to find that optimum.

If the cadence you normally ride at isn't that which gives maximum sustained power output, then logically there's value in training yourself to ride at optimal cadence.

Alex, your posts seem to imply that in attempting to maximise power output, a rider will naturally be riding at their optimum cadence. Is this necessarily so?

Tom Butcher

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Tom Butcher wrote:

If I'm sitting on a turbo on single speed and increase leg speed there is a necessary increase in power, if I increase power there is a necessary increase in leg speed - are you arguing that we don't control leg speed in the sense we control effort or just playing with semantics ?

It's the effort we control. The cadence is an outcome of that.

As I said before, that's because we can't control leg speed independently of the forces being applied.

Cadence is just easier to measure (and hence much more commonly measured) than are pedal forces, so we tend to think of it as independently important, when really it's (per se) a red herring.

So in other words you'd argue that you can jump equally effectively in a big gear with a lower cadence - or am I misinterpreting you ?

The argument made in the presentation was not so much about sustaining a high speed (tempted to say sustained power!) but developing a jump to create a gap etc.

Would you allow leg speed any part in that. By leg speed I suppose I'm conflating the ability to pedal fast against minimal resistance and the ability to increase cadence quickly against minimimal resistance. Or is there just no point in training for that ?

siamon

Sounds like a load of old codswallop.

Can't chose your cadence? Surely the only time that might be true is at maximum power?

I can't see cadence can possibly be a red herring.

RChung

fish156 wrote:

Presumably every rider had an optimal cadence, be that an unique value or a range? By "optimal" I mean that cadence at which sustained power output is maximum. The goal then for the OP's hour record rider is to find that optimum.

http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/wattage ... plots.html

RChung

Tom Butcher wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

As I said before, that's because we can't control leg speed independently of the forces being applied.

Cadence is just easier to measure (and hence much more commonly measured) than are pedal forces, so we tend to think of it as independently important, when really it's (per se) a red herring.

So in other words you'd argue that you can jump equally effectively in a big gear with a lower cadence - or am I misinterpreting you ?

If you're jumping you're choosing to change your power. You choose your power then select a gear (if you're not on a fixed gear) that allows you to find the combination of pedal speed and pedal force that allow you to attain that power. You don't choose the pedal speed or pedal force independently of each other--instead, you choose them jointly subject to the condition of increased power. Cadence, by itself (just as pedal force, by itself), is a red herring. Pedal speed and pedal force are outcomes of choosing a particular level of power. Since they're dependent variables (dependent to the choice of level of power) exogenously changing pedal speed (or pedal force) isn't going to change steady-state power since you'll just be changing pedal force (or pedal speed) in the other direction.

fish156

RChung wrote:

fish156 wrote:

Presumably every rider had an optimal cadence, be that an unique value or a range? By "optimal" I mean that cadence at which sustained power output is maximum. The goal then for the OP's hour record rider is to find that optimum.

http://anonymous.coward.free.fr/wattage ... plots.html

Interesting reading, thanks.

doyler78

RChung wrote:

Tom Butcher wrote:

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

As I said before, that's because we can't control leg speed independently of the forces being applied.

Cadence is just easier to measure (and hence much more commonly measured) than are pedal forces, so we tend to think of it as independently important, when really it's (per se) a red herring.

So in other words you'd argue that you can jump equally effectively in a big gear with a lower cadence - or am I misinterpreting you ?

If you're jumping you're choosing to change your power. You choose your power then select a gear (if you're not on a fixed gear) that allows you to find the combination of pedal speed and pedal force that allow you to attain that power. You don't choose the pedal speed or pedal force independently of each other--instead, you choose them jointly subject to the condition of increased power. Cadence, by itself (just as pedal force, by itself), is a red herring. Pedal speed and pedal force are outcomes of choosing a particular level of power. Since they're dependent variables (dependent to the choice of level of power) exogenously changing pedal speed (or pedal force) isn't going to change steady-state power since you'll just be changing pedal force (or pedal speed) in the other direction.

Now we can see why sports psychologists are so important