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Your ideal Cadence?

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El Imbatido

El Imbatido

Mar 17, 2009
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Thought i'd ask the question 'what kind of rider are you?' Grinder? spinner? somewhere inbetween?

So that leads to the question: What cadence(s) do you ride at?

On the Flat in the group - (84 - 88rpms)
Long Climbing - (90 - 110rpms)
Power Climbing - (out of the saddle but i think it falls a bit, so in the 80's)
Sprinting - (Don't know becasue i'm usually sprinting but i asume it would be pretty high)

My answers are in brackets, as you can see i'm a spinner especially when it comes to climbing. During long climbs i usally start near 110 rpms but i find that a good rhythm is about 96 - 102rpms and when i start to lose rpms i just shift down.

So how do you ride?
 
D

DonTickles

Jul 31, 2009
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On the flats: 95ish
long climbs: 90ish
short climbs: out of the saddle around 70-80
Don't do much in the way of sprinting.

So about 90% of my ride is spent between 90 and 100. I don't like spinning that fast out of the saddle, I feel very uncoordinated doing that and think I waste a lot of energy. My legs feel like they flop around at the bottom of the pedal stroke. So I generally shift up a few gears before I get out of the saddle and it feels a lot smoother around 75.
 
Ninety5rpm

Ninety5rpm

Mar 18, 2009
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El Imbatido said:
Thought i'd ask the question 'what kind of rider are you?' Grinder? spinner? somewhere inbetween?

So that leads to the question: What cadence(s) do you ride at?

On the Flat in the group - (84 - 88rpms)
Long Climbing - (90 - 110rpms)
Power Climbing - (out of the saddle but i think it falls a bit, so in the 80's)
Sprinting - (Don't know becasue i'm usually sprinting but i asume it would be pretty high)

My answers are in brackets, as you can see i'm a spinner especially when it comes to climbing. During long climbs i usally start near 110 rpms but i find that a good rhythm is about 96 - 102rpms and when i start to lose rpms i just shift down.

So how do you ride?
Click to expand...

On the Flat in the group - (90-105rpm)
Long Climbing - (40-80rpm)
Power Climbing - (60-90rpm)
Sprinting - (110-130rpm)

That's on my regular road bike with a 9spd 12-23 cassette and 39/52 chainrings.

I do climb with higher rpms on my cyclocross bike, but it has a triple and much lower gears.
 
D

Dude17

Aug 18, 2009
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I'm pretty consistent. When I'm fresher, my cadence is "usually" in the 90-95 range. The below are averages for a ride.

On the Flat in the group - 85-90 rpms
Long Climbing - low 80s rpms
Power Climbing - upper 80s rpms
Sprinting - no idea
 
egtalbot

egtalbot

Jul 8, 2009
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Sprinting is pretty much a LOL for me too. I can only go 3-5kph faster sprinting all out than I can for a 20K TT (obviously I can go faster if I'm starting from a pack going 50+kph, but same basic problem).

Aside from that, I ride pretty low cadence. 88-92 for TT's, about the same on "everyday" rides as long as the grade stays below about 4%. On steep climbs (>10%) longer than 15-20 seconds, I do VERY low cadence, no more than 60, although I do prefer standing climbing to sitting climbing unlike most other mashers.

Long climbs I don't do very often, at least not ones with decent grade. Up to say 4-5%, grades are a strength of mine as I just downshift a gear or two and keep up the same cadence. But longer climbs over 5%, I stink at. Which is no surprise - I need to learn a higher cadence or do a lot more training (or both) to be decent at those.

As a caveat to all this, I rarely ride over 30-35k. The only races I do are TTs of 15-25K, though I will be doing a triathlon coming up. I should also add that I am 5'9" and 150 pounds and I come from a 25 year running background - that probably has a great impact on how I ride
 
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mistahsinclair

Jul 30, 2009
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I tend to hover around 90 if I'm not thinking about it too much. I have a Garmin Forerunner 405 that I use to record cadence and my average is generally 89-91 almost without exception.

That said I've been trying some different things as they relate to TT...slower and faster cadence.

Dropping to 80 or going up to 100 both seem to be easier (based on heart rate) than the 90 I usually ride at - given the same speed.

Riding at 100 is easier to accelerate and get up to speed and easier to kick a little bit when needed. 80 seems easier to maintain speed unless it's into a headwind.

Hills? WFT are those? We don't got none of them fancy gadgets in southern LA!

>:)
 
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mherm79

Mar 19, 2009
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i normally average ~ 95 throughout a ride

in a pack - depends on speed of group and my position, cruising ~ 75, flat out hanging on between 100-110, taking a hard turn 80-85

steedy climbs ~ 80-90
steep climbs 60-70
 
craig1985

craig1985

May 6, 2009
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I don't know my cadence is I don't have anything to read on my computer and my Garmin. But spinning is a big part of my cycling, especially when it comes to going uphill. Some people might ride at a faster speed, but I spin and I drop them on the hills.
 
T

TheNJDevil

Jul 16, 2009
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St. Elia

St. Elia

Apr 1, 2009
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Flat anywhere between 100-115
Hills: (as high as I can with my gearing) but usually around 80 or lower some times
Short hills: depends if I am sprinting for the top or just pacing 90 to 110
Sprints 100 to 130

I'm a bit of a spinner but try to save my legs for the steep bits in the climbs, I can stand and grind but not up long climbs but try to mix it up.

L
 
cromagnon

cromagnon

Jul 28, 2009
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I did 100 km on saturday and lucky me it was feezing and there were gale force winds. I noticed somewhere around the 40 mile mark I started spontaneously using a lower cadence with a stiffer gear in extremely windy sections (insane wind, some casual riders I passed were almost standing still) it seemed to help and my speed certainly increased.

So just throwing that one extra factor in there - do you spinners keep it going into a headwind?
 
usedtobefast

usedtobefast

Jul 2, 2009
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cromagnon said:
I did 100 km on saturday and lucky me it was feezing and there were gale force winds. I noticed somewhere around the 40 mile mark I started spontaneously using a lower cadence with a stiffer gear in extremely windy sections (insane wind, some casual riders I passed were almost standing still) it seemed to help and my speed certainly increased.

So just throwing that one extra factor in there - do you spinners keep it going into a headwind?
Click to expand...

time trialing it into a headwind sometimes feels better pushing a big gear. along with a lot of cussing...:eek:
 
cromagnon

cromagnon

Jul 28, 2009
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TarmacExpert said:
I found this article very interesting:
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/345741/bowdler-makes-his-mark-on-the-bbar.html

British Best All Rounder Nik Bowdler uses a 77 tooth front chainring, a cadence of 65 rpm, and 165mm cranks!

He says that every time he made his front chainring bigger he got faster.
Click to expand...

Is he 7ft and 250 lbs? OK I'll read the article now.

(I did say in one of my earliest posts that I seemed to go faster with a lower cadence and stiffer gear and all the f***ing brainwashed zombies went "you must ride higher cadence...armstrong said so.......braaaaaainzzzz")
 
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