Originally Posted by
Wogsterca
Generally for an experienced and reasonably fit rider the following applies, but as always YMMV:
The bicycle motor has a power band that generally runs between 75 and 90RPM, much below 75RPM and your lugging that motor, and that adds stresses and makes the motor inefficient. Over 90RPM and the motor uses a much faster increase of energy to operate then the gain in forward energy used by the bicycle. This can result in a very fast ride that is shorter because the motor uses fuel too quickly.
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I could not agree more. There is no exact "right cadence" for any one rider. There are extremes at both ends. You see the pedal mashers and you see the racers with the legs being a blurr.
We all grew up in Holland where pedal mashing on a 1 or 3 speed bike is the norm. Two years ago we finally got my mom upgraded to a bike with 21 speeds so that she can ride in here area as there are hills and that old 40+ Lbs Raleigh was a beest in those conditions. It worked great in Amsterdam and Haarlem as her main mode of transporation, but most of the time you only rode maybe a mile or to the stores and back and taking us to school or some other place.
With my Mom's new bike I started to teach her to use a steady cadence that felt good and then use the gears to control the amount of effort, and had her not concertrate on speed. She can not now ride up some pretty steep hills without much effort. Before she'd try to mash and would not be able to make it up. A reasonable cadence is very helpful. I'd say that around 60 rpm is a very reasonable goal for new riders. I now ride about 87 to 94 on my commute, but I've been riding daily for a better part of 4 years. That didn't happen over night for me either.
Happy riding,
André