Originally Posted by
caloso
The old school way to improve cadence is to get a fixed gear with 70 gear inches or less. Ride that for a month or so and you'll be comfortable at 100 rpm.
This works! 46/18 gearing is perfect for cadence work; it's low enough to get you up moderate hills, but high enough you won't be pushing much over 200rpm on the way down.
Or just pedal faster in a lower gear, but this takes some discipline.
Also, if you have knee pain, your bike doesn't fit right. If the pain is at the front of the knee and below the kneecap, your saddle is too low (most knee problems are because of this). If the pain is in the tendons behind your knee, your saddle is likely too high. Anywhere else and you have something wrong with your pedaling mechanics (maybe twisting your knee out or something). Your knees should not hurt at all from pedaling a bicycle.
But yes, once you get the fit right, fixed gear is the way to go to increase pedaling rpm.
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"If you’re new enough [to racing] that you would ask such question, then i would hazard a guess that if you just made up a workout that sounded hard to do, and did it, you’d probably get faster." --
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