Originally Posted by
RChung
If you're new to road biking then cadence has essentially no importance: it simply tells you how fast your feet are turning the cranks, in rpm, and if you're new to road biking you don't yet have enough experience to put that into context and to know how to evaluate it. OTOH, if you're experienced at road biking then cadence also has essentially no importance.
then riddle me this: when people try to break the hour record on the track, why do they maintain a cadence of 95-100 rpm? in case you don't know (and i can't assume you do given the horrible advice you posted), it's because it allows the athletes to utilize as much aerobic power as possible. everyone's optimal pedaling rpm is different, but the higher it is, the more sustainable it is (get too high, and your overall efficiency goes down). it is the very same reason why you should keep your cadence up at the cost of a bit slower speed when you are on the front end of a time trial as this would ensure that you'll have something left in the tank for the latter part. and just fyi, not everyone can give a good estimate of their cadence, which is why it's important to have something to measure it.