Originally Posted by
GhostRider62
Any research to back that up?
A study titled, "The Effect of Pedaling Cadence on Skeletal Muscle Oxygenation During Cycling at Moderate Exercise Intensity" suggest the differential is closer to 15%
This paper puts it closer to 7% but the conditions of testing were different as were the type of subjects
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3918546/
Let's assume it a range of 7-15% power differential from most optimal to least optimal cadence. If so, not a trivial difference.
I take all of these kind of studies with a huge grain of salt. This one is of trained competitive riders, and all it may be showing is that people trained for a certain kind of riding will do best if they do things as they were trained. Muscles adapt to higher loads by getting bigger and stronger, and CV systems adapt to spinning in other ways, so I always wonder if there were a study of habitual mashers, would the power differentials, etc. look quite different.
I don't think the researchers are doing anything "wrong", per se. It's just that you can never get an apples to apples comparison between people who ride competitively using one style vs. another. BTW, let's save the "that shows mashing is inherently inferior to spinning for speed" comments because while that should generally be true, that's a bit like saying because the most effective shot in the NBA is the dunk, therefore 5'4" people should dunk.