Fifty Plus (50+) - Can you help me with cadence?

Sung to the tune of "On Top of Old Smoky"



On top of Mount Raymond
I sit here forlorn
My ticker is pounding
My quads are both torn

I pedalled for miles
As happy could be
That hill proved my cadence
Just wasn't to be

I start every morning
Intentions held high
But strike a good challenge
And away they do fly

Catweazle gets ragged
The strain soon does show
It's not what I want, but
What to do I don't know

My Fifty Plus friends will
Help me out I'm sure
It's joy out there riding
I want to do more



heh heh....


Here's the deal. As some of you are already aware, I'm a novice rider and I'm not adopting much of a 'scientific' approach to it. Nevertheless I've been doing a fair amount of reading up, and learning from what I've been reading. I've kinda got the hang of spinning those pedals faster than I was originally doing, and using the gears more effectively.

Over the past couple of weeks I've knocked up 400km, and for the "out there riding" component of that I've averaged about 21-22kph. I understand that's sorta OK for my level of experience and on a heavier and slower 'comfort bike'. I can only guesstimate my cadence, but I'd guesstimate it at around 70 to 75 or thereabouts, for the most part. It's definitely better than 60, and it's comfortable enough. I understand, from what I'm reading, that's rather OK too for a rider at my level of development.


So I'm happy enough, except for the fact that I find it awfully damned easy to lose that 'rhythm' when I'm confronted with a harder than usual challenge. When the wind gusts harder, or I come across a bit of a climb that's steeper than 'gentle', I'm finding that the rhythm has disappeared and I'm struggling, and it seems to happen without me even noticing. And it's hard work to get back to where I was.


I need to improve that, before I'm ready to venture further into territory where I want to ride. As mentioned, I don't really want to get too technical and 'professional' about it, and I'm not necessarily looking here for "the answer"! At present, I'm kinda feeling a bit too intimidated to head into the more specialised sections looking for advice too.

What I'm hoping is that some of you more experienced folk might see your way to having a chat about people in situations like mine, and thus help me get my head straight for confronting this little challenge :D

I face the same challenges on hills or in the wind. But I've only been riding for 30 years.

In general you want your cadence to be in the 80-100 range. Different people have different natural cadence at which they feel the most comfortable and it does take some work to move it up. My comfort level is about 85 and I have progressively moved my cadence up to the 90-95rpm level.

It is easier to do this if you are using clipless pedal system or toe clips as you are more engaged with the pedal. Also focus on keeping your cadence high and shifting gears to keep it even. If you are going up hill just shift so that your cadence does not change, same for going down hill. Riding with wind is a bit more difficult since gusts will slow you down and you cannot really pick a gear for the gusts since it would probably mean it would be too low most of the time. Having drop bars helps since you can get low and cut the impact of the wind which means the gusts will have less effect. Last get a cheap computer that does speed and cadence and if you can HR.

Mainly focus on your cadence and HR and as you improve your fitness your speed will naturally increase with the same HR and cadence.

Gears, gears and more gears.

Count your FULL revolutions for 10 seconds, multiply by 6. Not perfect, but close enough.

I say FULL, as in the past we have had folks say their cadence was 100, only to discover that they were counting 1/2 revolutions and their cadence was actually 50.

Is your goal to increase your cadence?

I have about decided I am one of those people who has more power than speed in my legs. I might also be able to spin faster if I weighed 170 pounds instead of 204 pounds.

As I read bits and pieces about cadence, I discover missing pieces of the puzzle. When I started riding seriously in the 1970s, ankling at the bottom of the pedal stroke was encouraged. Now you are not supposed to extend your foot at the bottom of the pedal stroke, but keep it flat. I like ankling. It spreads out the work between the top and bottom leg muscles better and gives me a smoother pedal stroke. But, keeping the foot flat at the bottom is supposed to make a higher cadence easier to attain. (Joe Friel in Cycling Past 50)

In the 1970s cadence was something that each person had as a natural inherited rhythm. The idea was to change gears in order to maintain one's natural cadence (and efficiency) during changing conditions. Since Chris Carmichael and Lance Armstrong, we are all supposed to spin at 100 rpm or so. I understand that spinning a bit faster in a lower gear is less arduous than lugging it in a gear too high.

Those who increase their cadence have various strategies for doing it. They have cadence measuring on their cyclometers and try to add 3 to 5 rpm. until it feels normal and then add another 3 to 5 rpm. They spin as fast as they can without rocking their hips while riding on a slight downgrade. They take spinning classes in a gymnasium. They spend a couple of years working up to a higher cadence because it takes a while for all of the small capillaries necessary for more blood delivery to develop in one's legs.

For those of us who do not have a cadence feature on our cyclometers, it is not hard to know our cadence after the fact and make comparisons to other rides. Multiply the constant 336 by your speed in miles per hour. Divide that by your gear in inches. The quotient is your cadence.

I am not Lance Armstrong and never will be.

I have about decided I am one of those people who has more power than speed in my legs. I might also be able to spin faster if I weighed 170 pounds instead of 204 pounds.



OK - but I am 220 lbs and my cadence is 85-90.

If you are out of breath you are spinning too fast, if your legs hurt you are mashing too slow. Proper cadence is somewhere between your legs hurting and being out of breath. As a general rule mashing is faster, spinning you can go longer. My cadence varries between 70-105 with 82 on the flats most common.

Jet Travis:

I hope I'm not being misleading. "Improve" is certainly the operative word here. I've no illusions about my potential to turn into a robot :D

stoncrd:

Having been a tad naive when I already purchased a cheap bike 'pooter which doesn't do cadence, and being on an extremely restricted budget over the coming six months, the purchase of another can't really be justified at this point. I'm sorta stuck with what I've got, for now.

I've an 'upright' bike too, but I've found that I can still lean down a good way, and shift my bum back a tad, to counter those gusts a bit. And although I've not an accurate monitoring of cadence I can 'feel' it slowly but steadily improving, and I suspect that I'm not too far from that '80' point, most of the time anyway. I've the feeling that your finger is right on the pulse of my problems when you mention gear changes. Gear changing on a bike is way different to gear changing in a vehicle, that's for sure, and I'm not feeling 'comfortable' with that yet.

Increasing my speed isn't really a big issue to me, although if more speed comes, as it probably inevitably will, I won't be complaining. But if I can keep more consistently to that 20-25kph it'll be adequate for the riding I want to do later in the year.

twobikes:

My goal isn't so much to increase cadence as it is to develop the capacity to maintain it better than I am. I'm pretty confident that further increases to rotation speed will continue to come, but when I start venturing off for short tours the better I can maintain that the better and easier I'll be riding, I feel. And of course when I'm doing that rather than 'routes' in the vicinity of town I'll be confronting days when I'm riding into the wind for lengthy periods, and days when I'm doing lots of climbing. I don't really want those to turn into "Couldn't get very far" days :)





I'm very much appreciating the suggestions about better judging cadence, by the way, and will be trying them out when I'm next on the bike.


DnvrFox, (and others mentioning gears):

I'd welcome any suggestions about gear changing. the 'technical stuff' about the bike i have is:

Crankset - Shimano TX-71. 48-38-28T
Cassette- Shimano Megarange 7 speed. 14-16-18-20-22-24-34T

(Off-topic and tongue in cheek) Why the **** do gears get referred to in ******** fashion on bikes, with high gear on the crankset getting denoted as '1', but high gear on the rear cassette getting the highh number as a high gear should?


Some of the regular riders in a 'club ride' I joined in with the other weekend advised me to approach climbing in this fashion:


Set the chain on a gear about the middle of the cassette.
Use the crankset to change up and down.


I'm finding that a tad cumbersome. Much of the riding I'm doing on flatter or gently undulating roads is pretty much the other way around, with the crankset on 1 or 2 as warranted by the slope or wind, and working slight variations with the gears at the back. On a flat road with no wind I can work up to and then maintain my rotation in the highest gearing available, and feel pretty comfortable doing that for ages. But when I strike a climb or wind, and then have to change that front cog, I 'lose it' completely and have to really struggle to get back any semblance of comfortable riding, and that takes a toll rather rapidly. Takes a good while to get reasonably 'comfortable' again afterwards.


I'm left with the feeling that I must be 'doing something wrong' regarding gear changes, and having trouble getting my head around it. Prolly just my newness to riding, I suppose. I'm all ears for any comments thrown my way, and very appreciative of them :)

What the heck is cadence?

Gear changing on a bike is way different to gear changing in a vehicle, that's for sure, and I'm not feeling 'comfortable' with that yet.


(Off-topic and tongue in cheek) Why the **** do gears get referred to in ******** fashion on bikes, with high gear on the crankset getting denoted as '1', but high gear on the rear cassette getting the high number as a high gear should?)

My wife's bike is similar to yours. "1" does not mean the same thing on the left shifter as it does on the right. I am going to put a little lable on her shift indicators that says "fast" on one side of the indicator's scale and "hill" on the other. Then she can forget the numbers and think about if she needs more power or wants more speed. Shifting eventually becomes 2nd nature, but it does not help when the visual cues contradict one another.

What the heck is cadence?

The difference between folding in an egg-white, or whipping up a pavlova, using a hand mixer?

My wife's bike is similar to yours. "1" does not mean the same thing on the left shifter as it does on the right.

I seriously thought that all bikes which use digits on the gear change were like that. Do you mean to say that they're not? Every bike I've taken the time to look at has used the same approach, if it has any 'numbers' there at all!

:eek:

...Some of the regular riders in a 'club ride' I joined in with the other weekend advised me to approach climbing in this fashion:


Set the chain on a gear about the middle of the cassette.
Use the crankset to change up and down.


I'm finding that a tad cumbersome. Much of the riding I'm doing on flatter or gently undulating roads is pretty much the other way around, with the crankset on 1 or 2 as warranted by the slope or wind, and working slight variations with the gears at the back. On a flat road with no wind I can work up to and then maintain my rotation in the highest gearing available, and feel pretty comfortable doing that for ages. But when I strike a climb or wind, and then have to change that front cog, I 'lose it' completely and have to really struggle to get back any semblance of comfortable riding, and that takes a toll rather rapidly. Takes a good while to get reasonably 'comfortable' again afterwards.


I'm left with the feeling that I must be 'doing something wrong' regarding gear changes, and having trouble getting my head around it. Prolly just my newness to riding, I suppose. I'm all ears for any comments thrown my way, and very appreciative of them :)

I think your instincts are right about how to shift. The front chainwheel sets the average gear range and the rear cassettes are for adjustments about that average. When the going is easy (downhill with a tail wind) you will be on the big front chain and making fine adjustments on the small cassette cogs at the back.

When you hit a big hill you will be on the small chainwheel and the large cassettes at the back. In between (up a slight grade or into a head wind) you will be on the middle front chainwheel and middle rear cogs.

Note that there is a subtley here. It is accepted practice to not use the largest front chainwheel with the largest rear cog because this is cross chaining and puts strain and wear on the cogs, chain and rear derailleur. Similarly, one does not generally use the smallest front chainwheel with the smallest rear cog. It's not the end of the world if you do not follow this practice, however.

It is best to switch between the front chainwheels when faced with a sudden change in slope since it will quickly get you into the range of gears that you will need. As you have noted, though, unless you plan ahead switching the front rings can also break your rythmn.

Here's an example: After blasting along on the flats on the large front and smallest rear cog you encounter a hill. As you start the hill you pump a bit but start to slow. Soon you downshift on the rear cassette to maintain your rythmn and a nice cadence. You continue to slow and downshift on the rear again. And again. Now you are near the middle of your rear cassette. Your cadence continues to slow...but this time you let it slow a little more than before. At some point based on practice and experience, you flip to the middle front ring. Your rythmn and cadence are now restored. If you continue to slow you downshift a couple of times on the rear to larger rear cogs. If the hill continues to steepen and say you are on your second-largest rear cog, then delay a bit and then switch to the smallest ring on the front. Your cadence is restored and you continue up the hill downshifting on the rear if necessary.

Hope this helps.

I spend way too much time trying to convince my wife to ignore those numbers. She'll say, "you're obviously working a lot less that I am right now, so please tell me the number you're in so I can work at an easier level as well." When I try to explain things to her, she gets annoyed and just demands to "know the number!"

Hello
You'll get better advice than mine, but you asked and I've enjoyed your posts, so for what it's worth (Which is about what you're paying for it)

I'd say a cadence of about 80 is fine for someone who says he's new. I'd say the issues to think about are, firstly, are you pedalling all round the circle, and second, do your gears allow you to shift easily to keep in your comfortable +/-80?

Roundy round, not up and down. Lots of cyclists bike like they hike - alternate downward pressure. Consciously try to rotate, emphasise the forwards and backwards pressure, not only the up and down. A number of mental images to help, particularly the 'scrape something off your shoe between 4 and 8 o'clock' of the rotation. Toe clips help with this. They also help to lift the upcoming foot - not to try to put upward pressure, but certainly to minimise the extra effort of lifting 40 lbs of hambone on the upcoming leg

Gears - I'd not completely agree with the advice to keep the back cogs constant and make big shifts on the front. In fact, I'd say the opposite. On a triple, I'd advise riding mainly on the middle, make small and quick adjustments on the back cassette, save the big and small ring for the fastest or slowest parts of the ride (bombing or bailing)

The main thing is - you'll find your comfy pace the more you do! Enjoy

I am definitely a spinner (typically ~100 RPM), except when climbing. Yes, gears help immensely, which is why I am so amused/disgusted with the whole single speed freewheel fad.

[QUOTE=Catweazle;6413490]
Some of the regular riders in a 'club ride' I joined in with the other weekend advised me to approach climbing in this fashion:


Set the chain on a gear about the middle of the cassette.
Use the crankset to change up and down.


Forgive me - you were there and I wasn't

But is there a possibility of a gap between what the club riders transmitted and what you received? Might they have meant
Set the chain on the middle chainring
Use the cassette to change up and down

If there is that possibility, I'd be inclined to follow the second interpretation;)

dbg, maybe your problem is the same one which dictates that we should put aside the ego and get somebody else to teach our kids to drive. :)



The Smokester, thank you so much for taking the time to type out that explanation. Seeing it explained that way makes a LOT of sense to me, and I'll be putting in the effort to practice and try to get an approach like that to become 'automatic' for me. All too often, as I've found from coaching other activities with newbie adults, the problem with the teaching lies in the telling of it, and too much of the subtlety remains unsaid because it's taken for granted. Your explanation doesn't do that. instead it fills out and explains the necessary subtleties.


As you have noted, though, unless you plan ahead switching the front rings can also break your rythmn.

I'll be fitting in a reasonable ride tomorrow, and plan to go put some time in on a hill which is the 'challenge' component of a group ride I wish to join in with during the weekend. Next week I suspect it'd be a good idea to transport the bike out of town a few days, and put my practice in riding around steeper country. I'll be able to put more time in working on the approach you've described if I do that.


wobblyoldgeezer, as far as I can determine the pedals I have on this bike are called 'Nylon comfort' platform pedals. I ride in comfortable 'slipper' type sneakers with chunky soles on them, and they mesh rather well with the pedals to give me good grip. Despite not using toe clips or clipless I'm certainly getting power into that '4 o'clock to 8 o'clock' part of the rotation you mention, when I'm working at riding rather than just lazily meandering along. I read plenty of comment about clipless pedals/cycling shoes when I got here, and why people use them, and made conscious effort to incorporate that principle into my riding. It's getting to 'feel' quite natural to do so now, and I no longer really consciously think about it.

Maybe that'll change when I start to do more climbing and work harder at it. If I start to feel that I need the better 'connection' I plan to try toe clips pretty quicksmart.


The gear change on this bike is very good. There are a couple of small adjustments need to be made, but the bike is due back for 'after-sales' checking and adjustment anyway, so that'll be attended to. changing to '1' on the crankset necessitates a second quick flick of the thumb. The bike doesn't particularly like '7' on the cassette (especially of the front is on the middle cog) and at times jumps between 6 and 7. Not really problems, and they're minor matters which I expect to see resolved with the service. Other than that the gear changing is very precise, and I'm very happy with it.


And no, by the way. There was no misunderstanding in the communication on that club ride. What was said to me was definitely to set the gearing on the cassette at about the middle and then to use the crankset for gear changes afterwards. I adopted that approach on the ride which was lengthy and rather hilly, wasn't comfortable with it at all, and then afterwards had difficulty trying to find and adjust to a different and better approach.

As a general rule mashing is faster, spinning you can go longer. No. Under any particular condition there's an optimum. The trick is to find that optimum. And it'll be different for different people.

That's great. It sounds to me like you're enjoying yourself, you're balancing others' views with your own experience, and you're finding that the more you do the more you like it. Bonne Continuation, as my French friends say!!

Set the chain on a gear about the middle of the cassette.
Use the crankset to change up and down.Totally backward! Use the cassette for most of your shifting. Typically, shifting the front derailleur is about equivalent to two or three shifts at the cassette. Pick the front gearing for the general conditions of slope and wind, and use the rear gearing to make the finer adjustments. Further, the rear shifts easier and quicker, and shifts better under load.
(Off-topic and tongue in cheek) Why the **** do gears get referred to in ******** fashion on bikes, with high gear on the crankset getting denoted as '1', but high gear on the rear cassette getting the highh number as a high gear should?Huh? I've never seen that. "1" has always been the lowest gear. In the front, low is the smallest gear, while in the rear, low is the largest gear. And the shifters work in opposite directions...but the numbering is consistent, with low gear ratios being "1" and higher ratios being the larger number (if there are numbers, that is...some shifters have numbers, and some don't).

Sometimes it helps to think about circles as you pedal.

I also find it rather weird that for the left shifter (crank) it's index finger to shift down and thumb to shift up, whilst on the right shifter (cassette) it's the other way round, with index finger shifting up and thumb shifting down. That right side/left side reversal still isn't reflex for me yet, and doubtless that's contributing to my problems as well.


Oh well! Some places in the world people drive on the wrong side of the road. Life's full of little hurdles to overcome.

:lol:

I also find it rather weird that for the left shifter (crank) it's index finger to shift down and thumb to shift up, whilst on the right shifter (cassette) it's the other way round, with index finger shifting up and thumb shifting down. That right side/left side reversal still isn't reflex for me yet, and doubtless that's contributing to my problems as well.


Oh well! Some places in the world people drive on the wrong side of the road. Life's full of little hurdles to overcome.

:lol:In either case, index finger shifts to a smaller gear, thumb shifts to a larger gear. It's just that smaller and larger gears produce different effects front and rear.

Great discussion.
I've been off the bike for years, and when I did ride regularly it was on my roadie...for a long time I used a computer for cadence and developed a pretty keen feel for my "normal" which is around 90.

I've since returned to the bike (a city-fied MTB) and have noticed (age has some effect) that I "spin" slower than I used to, but I do use the gears to find my comfort zone -- probably around 80-85.

As I've gotten some mileaged on the bike I have settled on the large chainring and middle cassettes for about 99% of my riding (it's real flat here on the Florida coast)...I've noticed too that I don't head for the "lower" gears as often.

Cadence is a beautiful thing. As you progress, you'll learn where your comfortable spin-zone (apologies to Bill O'Reilly) is and pick your gear for that. I will say that spinning at 90 or so rpm while on the grannie gears does look pretty silly, but it saves the knees!!

Great discussion.

Great forum, IMO. Whilst I can't offer opinion on the other sections of this board, because I haven't spent enough time in them, I'm happy to say that this particular forum section ranks amongst the most enjoyable, friendly, welcoming, well-mannered and helpful places I've ever visited.

And this discussion, so far, has provided me with the most enjoyable and productive evening I've spent since taking up cycling recently.


:beer:

I've only skimmed the responses but if no one else has said it: the thing that has helped me make (modest) progress on hill climbing at a reasonable cadence is to shift down to the easier gear or to the smaller ring BEFORE you feel any strain!

And like they said: cadence is an individual thing and very much what you feel comfortable with. As you ride more you might find your cadence getting faster. Comes with experience & strength & for a lot of people it "just happens".

And fixed gears have some advantages in at least moderate climbing, no matter what JohnE says. Honestly, I didn't believe it till I tried it. But that's another thread. :p

(Seems I'm often giving him grief about this! All in fun John. :D )

I seriously thought that all bikes which use digits on the gear change were like that. Do you mean to say that they're not? Every bike I've taken the time to look at has used the same approach, if it has any 'numbers' there at all!

:eek:
My wife has a Wal-Mart type bike. She rolls a grip ring forward or backward to shift. There is one on the lefthand bar and one on the right. Next to each is a window with numbers and a needle.

But, one bike I ride has no windows and no numbers. I call the shift controls a trigger and a hammer, like a revolver. If I want to let the chain fall down to a smaller diameter cog, I pull the trigger with my finger. If I want to move the chain up to a larger diameter cog, I push the hammer with my thumb. On the left side of the handlebar pulling the trigger gives me more hill climbing power, but pushing the hammer gives me more speed (front derailleur). On the right side it is just the opposite (rear derailleur). One of the other bikes I ride has shifters in the brake levers ("brifters"--no numbers or windows). Another bike has friction shift levers on the downtube of the frame (no numbers or windows). Switching between bikes can be a little confusing.

I broke myself of a mashing habit with some simple changes. None of these is anything original, but combined they seem pretty effective.


Think circles or think bushing mud on a mat.
Spin as rapidly you comfortably can.
If you want to go a bit faster, spin a bit faster.
Shift up only when you want to go faster than you can spin.
Shift down early in a hill unless it is very short
Spin faster than usual uphill.
Shift down for headwinds rather than pushing harder.
Make friends with all two or three front rings.
Adjust gearing to you rather than the other way round.


Most days under most conditions my unconscious natural cadence is 76 to 80. Last spring I had to think about keeping it over 60.

I call the shift controls a trigger and a hammer, like a revolver. If I want to let the chain fall down to a smaller diameter cog, I pull the trigger with my finger. If I want to move the chain up to a larger diameter cog, I push the hammer with my thumb. On the left side of the handlebar pulling the trigger gives me more hill climbing power, but pushing the hammer gives me more speed (front derailleur). On the right side it is just the opposite (rear derailleur). .

That describes what I have, although mine has 'windows and numbers'. It a Shimano EF-50 'V-brake' shifter as depicted in this parts document:

http://techdocs.shimano.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/EV/bikecomponents/ST/EV-ST-EF50-2503_v1_m56577569830609276.pdf

The cogs are numbered left to right, just as the dial indicator is. That means using the thumb shift with the left hand moves the crankset to cog '3', which is the highest geared (largest) front cog, whilst using the thumb shift with the right hand moves the rear derailleur in the opposite direction, changing it toward cog '1' which is the lowest geared (largest) rear cog.

As I intimated earlier, it's kinda arse about face, to my perspective. Doesn't adhere to a consistent principle for either denoting or operating the thing, when changing to higher and lower gearing.

Sometimes it helps to think about circles as you pedal.

This is more important than you think. A smooth pedal stroke thru 360 degrees is what you want to develop. May sound stupid, but try pedaling the bike with only one leg. Of course this is better on an indoor trainer but on some fine empty road is also good.

On high cadence: the entire high cadence/Lance Armstrong thing came from watching Kenyan distance runners and how could they be winning so much? They developed, or were born with, a short running stride and fast leg turnover. The method was applied to endurance cycling. My thought is this 100 rpm is not for every cyclist.

Are you trying to ride 100 + miles at 30 + mph? As a beginning cyclist you should concentrate on what feels good and gets the job done. When you are getting $2 million a year + $19 million in endorsements(Lance Armstrong) then worry about 100 rpms.

Couple of points- Get a few more miles under the tyres and you will settle into a cadence that is comfortable. Providing this is above 70- you will be ok. Try to check what you are now by the system DnVrFx suggested- No. of full turns in 10 seconds and multiply X 6.

Gear indicators- Eventually you will realise that they are no good. The Plastic will Blur over- The gearing will be out by one gear on the indicator- or they will break. The only time you will get worried is when you go to change down a gear because you are tired and the hill is getting steeper and the Buttons go solid. They go solid because you have run out of gears and have hit the stops. Easiest way of checking the gears- is a quick visual check on the cassette and chain rings. That normally confirms you have no gears left and the hill is about to get steeper.


And IF YOU EVER GET TO A HILL----- Get into the correct front ring before the hill- May be the middle- But a HILL- will probably need the small ring. Reason for this is that it is difficult to change the front rings under pedal pressure.

OK-correct front ring and approach the hill in a comfortable rear ring. Most change down to the lowest gear at the sight of a hill- but keep your speed up with a small gear on the cassette.---Then as you go up the hill and it starts getting hard- Change dowm- Harder still and change down again- and again and again and----When you run out of gears and it gets hard-Slow down.

Only thing to remember is that it does not matter how low a gear you have on a bike- on hills you will use it. SKT and I have found- You will struggle up some hills in a 30/28 gear on the bike. Then you change the bike and you struggle up the same hill in 34/27. Only difference is that you are faster.

If you are out of breath you are spinning too fast, if your legs hurt you are mashing too slow. Proper cadence is somewhere between your legs hurting and being out of breath.

Waddya call it when your legs are crying and the searing pain is engulfing you in waves of agony, and your lungs are ready to explode as you gulp more air than they can possibly hold?

A normal training ride. :)

The fact you are even thinking about cadence is 1/2 the battle!
Is your seat height correct? Too low and you bend the knee too much. Too high and you are "reaching". Either will slow you down!
Are your cranks too long? If you have 175MM cranks and you're under 6' tall (and 50+), you are probably exceeding the "comfortable" range of motion of your knees. See this link i posted about crank length and MY experience-
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=361045
Gearing. I don't know what bike you have, but if you ride on the flats and you have a "mountain" cassette, that's going to reduce your "useful" gears. In order to have the 30+ tooth cogs, the smaller cogs have to be spaced further apart (gear wise). That means you have bigger "jumps" between gears, with one gear being too high, but the "other" gear being too low. That can be frustrating when trying to maintain a relatively steady cadence.
I ride flatland (mostly small city). I made up a custom cassette with 12-13-14-15-16-17-19-23 cogs. I have all those 1 tooth increments so I can make a slight change if the headwind changes slightly. That allows me to keep spinning in a rather narrow cadence range. That works GREAT for my bad knees!
I ride the middle ring (38T) around town and have 4 higher gears if I want to switch to the 48T ring for the road/ My 28/23 combo will more than handle any hills I might have.

Catweazle-It might be simplest at this stage to just forget trying to figure out the gears. Some things are just not logical! However, I can understand that if you have a technical background "letting it go" can be a pretty hard thing to do. You can always get a Compact Crank to reduce the complexity to just having two chainrings up front!!!

Working on your cadence is a good thing. On flats work towards getting it feeling normal for your cadence to be between 85-100 rpm on flats or rollers-again don't worry about the gear just that you can steadily maintain that cadence over time. Use the gears (whatever gear it needs to be to compensate for the wind or grade) to keep the cadence in that range. Ideally your using a cadence and gear that keeps your heart rate in a range you want to keep in as well so the two are really tied together. If you don't have a HR monitor just make sure your "ticker is pounding" at a comfortable rate-generally you're able to talk to someone while riding.

On hills, most likely your cadence will drop below 85-even when in much easier gears. I like being around 70-75 but sometimes I've seen my drop even below 60 on really steep stuff...which ain't too good on the knees.

I hate you can't pick up a cheap cyclometer with cadence. Over here you can get them for $25.

If you are out of breath you are spinning too fast, if your legs hurt you are mashing too slow. Proper cadence is somewhere between your legs hurting and being out of breath. As a general rule mashing is faster, spinning you can go longer. My cadence varries between 70-105 with 82 on the flats most common.

My legs hurt but I'm breathing too hard to complain.

To me cadence is everything. The cadence number fills the top half of my Garmin 305 screen. It is the one number I always want to know. That being said, there is no right, and no natural cadence. Cadence is a choice. What I was get at before was an old training trick. If you can breath but your legs get tired you are mashing too low. If your legs are fine but you're all out of breath, you're spinning too fast. If you're out of breath and out of legs you've just did one too many intervals.

If you ride a fixie over rolling terrain there is no way to keep a constant cadence, you'll mash up hills, spin down the hills and cruise on the flats, and all that is ok. But most of us are not on fixie's, we ride gears. The gears are there so you can ride a constant cadence. Most of the time for me that's in the mid 80's, but not always. Sometiems I'll ride my road bike like a fixie and let the terrain dictate what RPM I spin.

Oh!

I've only really been referring to that as a curiousity, jppe, and as an exercise in being sociable. It's not really a ;problem' except in the sense that I've not yet had enough time on the bike for the operating of it to become a reflex action, and that's not really much of a problem at all.


The financial constraint is self-imposed. I'm kicking myself for not looking into things more closely before buying a cheap bike 'pooter, but six months will roll by soon enough. The cheap unit I grabbed was $AU 25, it makes little sense to upgrade unless I'm moving to better, and 'better' seems to be around the $AU65 mark. For now, I've already reached the budget I set myself, and I'm mindful that to get the bike I spent money which wasn't really there to spend just for the moment.

:)



Waddya call it when your legs are crying and the searing pain is engulfing you in waves of agony, and your lungs are ready to explode as you gulp more air than they can possibly hold?

Working.

That's what I'd call it, anyway :)

Use this gear calculator "backwards. Pick a speed and note what the # of teeth on the ring and cog are per certain speed. Plug in the numbers and see wht the cadence is. You can do the same thing if you are semi adept with spread sheets.
http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/
Don't be too concerned about absolute numbers. If some one expected me to do 90 RPM, I'd have to quit because it's not going to happen.
Just spin free and easily with a little resistance. Just keep working on it and it will both improve and become 2nd nature.
And lets be honest- We really only worry about cadence when we want to maximize speed & distance. A slow ride around the neighborhood is just that. It'd be pretty dumb to be cranling 100 RPM if you're doing 5 MPH! (8KPH)

IM in the same camp as you,Catweasle,but there is know doubt if i cadance ,100 revs a minute except when standing on the pedals im going to go faster ,farther and feel better at the end of the day.And know matter what I dont like it/Ken

I have a high cadence anyway, but I notice I can make it higher by trying to hit the handlebars with my knees. It also makes for making better circles.

Maybe one other consideration is body type. A lot of keen cyclists are skinny whippets, and skinny whippetys can spin. But, in the fast group here, there are a number of fast guys with calves like rugby balls and sturdy builds, rotating slowly in big gears and going like stink

...But, in the fast group here, there are a number of fast guys with calves like rugby balls and sturdy builds, rotating slowly in big gears and going like stink

I know a couple of women like that, too! One leads a ride I go on. Once the season is well underway she starts rides off at 18mph and it goes up from there. Late in the season when I'm stronger I hang with her. Sometimes, especially early in the season, I drop back with the slower group that more or less spontaneously develops.

I used to like a slower cadence. Then I experimented with choosing at least one gear lower than I felt was "right" and spinning faster. I noticed that my speed increased.

I don't worry about rpm. I can feel when I'm spinning too hard or pushing too high of a gear. I get tired faster. So I spin as fast as I can while not feeling like I'm tiring myself out unnecessarily through a too-high cadence.

One last qualifier: my focus while riding is not speed. It's riding long distances without unnecessary suffering. I try to keep a pace that I could maintain all day, then get up and ride the next day, and the day after, etc. (I'm a tourer.)

I have a high cadence anyway, but I notice I can make it higher by trying to hit the handlebars with my knees. It also makes for making better circles.

But, what about the bruises on your knees?

I used to like a slower cadence. Then I experimented with choosing at least one gear lower than I felt was "right" and spinning faster. I noticed that my speed increased.

I don't worry about rpm. I can feel when I'm spinning too hard or pushing too high of a gear. I get tired faster. So I spin as fast as I can while not feeling like I'm tiring myself out unnecessarily through a too-high cadence.

One last qualifier: my focus while riding is not speed. It's riding long distances without unnecessary suffering. I try to keep a pace that I could maintain all day, then get up and ride the next day, and the day after, etc. (I'm a tourer.)

+1

On that "Cheap" computer for the bike. After a while you notice that you don't look at it. You know when you are going fast enough- because you can't breath- You know you have done a lot of milage when the butt starts aching and you know that the average speed for a ride was up because the legs don't stop burning for the evening. You only look at the computer after a ride- or on the Cafe break after about 20 miles.

That is until you get a computer like the Garmin Edge series that is Wireless- as its a GPS- tells you your heart rate- cadence- how far you've climbed and a lot of other facts that you really ought to know about. And when you download the facts at the end of the ride- it can even put a map on Google to show you where you have been. Only problem is that you only look at it when the ride has finished and you can see your ride in all its glory on the screen.

Stay with the cheap computer- You don't need any more than that.





Unless you do get a Garmin- cos they are fantastic.

First, some terminology to help in future discussions-
The gears in front are typically called chainrings, or just rings for short. The whole set is called the crankset
The gears in back are called cogs, and the whole set is called the cassette (or freewheel on those type bikes).

Small ring and small cog or big ring and big cog is called crosschaining, and as mentioned can cause increased wear or poor shifitng performance (jumping back to the next cog, due to the chain being pulled off the cog at an angle). Depends on the length of the chainstays though- not as much of a problem on long bikes as it is on shorter bikes.
Small cogs (outside, high number) and big rings (outside, high number) are "higher" gears, small rings and big cogs are "lower" gears. On a 8 cog triple ring bike, 1-1 is the lowest gear, 3-8 is the highest gear.
A way to compare one bike to another is to use "gear inches" (GI for short) - the wheel diameter in inches multiplied the number of teeth on the chainring divided by the number of teeth on the cog. On a touring bike, a typical range would be around 20 GI lowest to 100 GI highest.

Sorry if the above is old news for any of you, but when I started out, it took a long time to put all the above together, and things got a lot easier to understand once I had all the terms down.

SHifting- not sure why someone would've said to pick a cog, and then use the front derailleur to shift about. That's completely opposite of everything I've heard or read. The rear derailleur is designed to shift under load, the front is designed to shift under no load conditions, so you should shift the front rings BEFORE you start the hill, and if you HAVE to change rings while on the hill, back off the force on the pedals while you do it- keep them moving, but let off on the force. Depending on the hill steepness, I'll typically drop into the middle ring, or the small ring if I know its a really steep hill, before getting to it and shift up to the smaller cogs to compensate. Once on the hill, I'll shift down through the cogs as needed.

Spinning vs mashing- I had lots of trouble when I started out with hills- books and web said to spin fast- and I was out of lung long before the hill was over (cadence around 80-85). Some said to slow down and pedal hard, and I was out of legs before I was over the hill (cadence around 60). I had to compromise, and get stronger/fitter. My cadence was around 80-85 on the flats, and I found that if I slowed to around 70-75 on the hills, I could go longer. I had to drop down to my lowest gears to do it, but I could climb most hills at the intermediate cadence. I worked on spinning faster on the flats, and got it to around 90 for cruising. I started climbing every hill I could, and I still tned to climb at around 75-80, but I no longer need to bottom out the gears to do it. I very rarely get out of the middle ring now, and very rarely use my largest cog. My bike has a 24/34/42 crankset, and an 11-30 cassette.

Using a lower gear and spinnign faster will usually allow you to conserve energy for later in the ride- and for me it proves true- if I mash gears on hills early in a ride, I'm wiped out later.

Find a moderate hill, rather longish, and go practice on it. Find a cadence that doesn't leave you out of breath, and a gear that doesn't leave your legs feeling like lead. Then ride it, over and over. Soon, you'll notice your cadence increasing, the fatigue decreasing, and the cog you use getting smaller.
As several others mentioned- toe clips, or clip[less pedals, or Power Grips will help immensly on hills, and for increasing cadence.

Sorry if the above is old news for any of you, but when I started out, it took a long time to put all the above together, and things got a lot easier to understand once I had all the terms down.

All of the contributions in this thread are very much appreciated, and although I've become familiar with some of the terms used, seeing them used and discussed in such fashion helps put it all in perspective. I'd hope that other new riders, not just me, can gain benefit from this topic. It's an excellent body of advice people are putting together here, IMO.


I put quite a deal of the advice given so far into practice on a long group ride yesterday, and very much exceeded my expectations regarding where I'm "at" with my riding. I'll start a new topic about that ride, but for the purposes of this one suffice to say that Catweazle no longer spends all his time keeping the sagwagon company :)