Originally Posted by RChung

Perceived effort was minimized at freely chosen cadence. It was higher for cadences both above and below the FCC, while holding power fixed. In addition, other studies show that as power increases, riders increase both their freely chosen cadence and their freely chosen pedal force -- they don't keep their cadence constant and simply increase the force. This explains why more experienced riders tend to have higher cadence: their power output increased so they responded with increased cadence. Their pedal force also increases but to onlookers pedal force is invisible There's no evidence that artificially raising cadence results in improved performance.