Originally Posted by
CraigB
I ignore cadence in those situations and will usually ride one gear higher than I would normally do if I were riding by myself at that speed. I find having a little more pedal resistance makes it easier for me to micro-accelerate if needed in order to maintain a constant distance off my leader's wheel. Others may do differently, but that's what works best for me.
For our company MS150 team we did pacelined training rides, lead by one of our party who had been a collegiate competitive racer. His instructions were to pedal at low cadence in a higher gear than you'd use for solo riding, to limit the size of speed and gap variations. Also to keep a finger on the brake levers, and to use air resistance to make small gap increases when needed. Essentially pedal resistance is lower and the bike's response to added power is bigger while in a paceline (or peleton) that it would be for a lone rider. Considering the damage that may occur even to young racers in case of a paceline or peleton crash, I think these bits of technique are rather important for 50+ers.