Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
What gears other people use is of zero interest. Only care about cadence. You need to find what your best cadence is for long climbs, bearing in mind that cadence is trainable so it's not necessarily a fixed number. Most folks do best at 75-85, so that's a good place to start.
The cadence other people use is of zero interest. Only care about whether you can get up the hill comfortably with your gearing and your cadence. Lots of people say that they climb at a certain cadence. I've never seen that. What I've seen is that riders vary their cadence according to the steepness of the slope, the amount of effort they want to put out for that climb, the length of the climb, and the gearing they have available to them. Here you can see how one guy varied his cadence with the steepness of the slope. Doesn't look like he was climbing at a fixed cadence, does it?
