Commuting - The finer points of cadence

I rode home into a 25 mph head wind. I had no ability to build up any speed at all, but it was a great opportunity to work on cadence.

I just finished an exerpt on John Forester (http://www.johnforester.com)'s web site about cadence. However, I was wondering about the finer points of breaking in a cadence.

How do you keep your hips from bouncing when you pedal that fast?

How much does pedal pressure influence when you shift?

How do you zip up hills and keep any speed, while keeping 90-100 rpm?

Originally posted by IowaParamedic
How do you keep your hips from bouncing when you pedal that fast?
Spin, brother. ie. try to keep pressure on the pedal for the entire stroke. Even with clips and straps it's surprising how much of the stroke you can do this with. Visualise your feet moving in circles, not up and down.


Originally posted by IowaParamedic
How much does pedal pressure influence when you shift?
For me, not at all. I go on leg speed. When to shift is a fairly personal thing. As you ride more and more you'll work out what's best for you, but keeping up a reasonably good cadence is a good place to start. When you feel like you can't spin any faster, upshift. However, it's good training to spin a bit faster than you're comfortable with, which is what 90rpm will feel like for a while.


Originally posted by IowaParamedic
How do you zip up hills and keep any speed, while keeping 90-100 rpm?
Downshift. You won't be going as fast as on the flat, but gravity's like that. Again, spinning helps in keeping some speed up. For short climbs, get out of the saddle and power over them.

Hope this helps. I not an axpert on this by any stretch of the imagination - I'm just going on my own observations and what works for me, so the technophiles are welcome to correct me where I'm spreading misinformation.

Dont try to strech your cranks, spin in smothe circles with even force for as much of the arc as possible. Hoe much force is entirely up to you.
Use gears to match your force and cadence with resistance (wind/terrain)Keep force and cadence constant and let your speed vary.
Hill are usually climbed with more force and slower cadence than on the flat, but start with cadence as high as possible.

If your hips are rocking, your saddle may be too high. Move it it small increments (2mm). Mainly you just need to practice to stop rocking.

I can spin pretty smoothly at 100-105. At 110 I start to bounce a little until I really concentrate on it. It is not unusual to bounce a little when you first try to spin faster. If your hips are rocking, follow MichaelW's advice regarding seat height.

Here are a couple of visualizations I use to focus on smooth spinning.

1. Try to let your feet "float" in your shoes. That is, try not to feel any pressure either pushing down or pulling up. This will mean your feet are moving in nice little circles.

2. Your upper legs are doing the work. Picture gently lifing your upper legs then letting them fall. Let the lower legs be pretty much passive transferors of power. Get away from the push-push-push. If your lower quads, the area just above your knees in the front, start to feel fatigued you are pushing.

Later you can incorporate visualizations like wiping mud from your feet to introduce some power at the bottom of the stroke, etc., but don't try to think about too much at one time.

Number one above is the most important for me. If my quads start feeling fatigued I do a quick check and realize that I am in push-push-push mode. Once I start floating my feet my cadence immediately increases about 5 rpm and my quads quickly recover.

You have to use lower gears to learn to spin faster and you will actually climb faster by getting in a low enough gear to keep your cadence up.

IP, what can I say? :)

Some of this is practice. In a nutshell, though, I get better performance as I practice higher cadence. I think it's like car engines: smaller engines (legs) get more power out of higher RPM's. Practice, practice...

I'm still working on it! :rolleyes:

;)