I am curious so please don't take this as anything other than that, I was reading the post by Allen55 on the topic of cadence, not wanting to derail his thread I thought I would start one and ask because as I was reading I found myself thinking "whats the difference really?"
It seems like its important just because we can... and what I mean by that is that I have been riding for the last 3 years and cannot think of a single instance where knowing what my exact cadence is/was would have helped me a single bit so is it kind of like just a cool gadget to have a cadence sensor on our bikes? sort of like all of the Honda's riding around with a 3 inch Monster tach hanging off of their A pillar? I mean the tach on the Honda works sure, its relevant because it is after all a car but is it really something that is needed?
I suppose I could equate it to driving a car with a stick, sure I can look down at the tach and shift at the exact moment that the manufacturers hand book says to but why do I need to do that? I know how the car sounds when it needs to be shifted, I know how the car feels when it needs to be shifted so I shift as needed. When I ride my bike I can feel when I need to drop into a lower gear or shift up into a higher one, I know when I am working too hard or can work harder by how I feel so what would the advantage be to having a cadence sensor on my bike? I have a Garmin that I use when I ride and my wife asked me if I would like to have the cadence sensor to go with it a while back and because I couldn't think of a reason that made more sense than "would be cool to know" I thought of it as a toy that I didn't really need.
I ride for fun, I ride for my health and I ride because I love being out there on the trails on the back of my bikes, worrying about my cadence I think would take away from the riding itself.
Am I missing something?
