There's a feeling I call being on top of a gear. It's when you're holding speed and cadence, for me that cadence is north of 85. If I can't hold that, then it's time to down shift and maintain the cadence at the sacrifice of speed.

A friend of mine is a former National Champion in the 40K points race. He loaned me some rollers last winter. He had me working on pedal stroke and cadence 3 times a week for 20 min per session. On the rollers you either pedal smooth or end up on the garage floor. I hit the floor 3 times before I got it. That exercise has pushed my average cadence up by about 10. Those 10 RPM allow me to recover noticeablly quicker from hills or any high effort like pulling at the front of a fast, for me, pace line.

Previously, I had tried to increase my cadence by just pedaling faster. I never could seem to make it stick, something about that garage floor helped me turn it into a habit.