stapfam

75 to 85 is what you are used to so why change. My comfort zone falls between 85 and 95. 85 and I am looking for a lower gear and 95 and I want a higher. Couple of weeks ago we checked speed to cadence at 100 in our highest gear and it was 30 mph. Still felt comfortable but made us realise that we would not keep that up for long. First slope came and to keep that cadence of 100 we were breathing a bit hard. Dropped the speed a bit, dropped the cadence to 90 and sailed up it. Next slope dropped the speed a bit again and cadence to 80 and we actually lost speed and had to change down to keep the cadence. We could not accelerate back up to 90 in that gear. Our little bit of checking cadence to speed also made us realise that last year we pushed ourselves up to 45 mph and were still pushing hard. That cadence we had then would have been 150. I said at the time that I never wanted to spin that fast again.

Now offroad- on the flat we try to keep to 90 and that is comfortable. Downhill we generally coast above 30 mph but can still put in power if speed drops. Uphills though we drop cadence considerably. Like to ride them at 70 to 80 but that is probably due to mental side of long steep hills that will take 10 minutes to climb. Then when we run of gears and energy- it is survival time and a cadence of 60 in the lowest gear. Much lower than that and we are at risk of stalling on the hill and falling off again.

Cadence is one of those things that will vary from cyclist to cyclist. There is no optimum or set cadence that applies to everyone. Only thing is that Newbies generally ride at a lower cadence- but as the legs and lungs and riding experience comes in, it rises. Now all I have to do is convince our fit rider that he is doing it all wrong with a cadence range of 45 to 60 and see if it slows him down a bit.