Originally Posted by thequickfix
Actually, I'm almost certain it's the same thing. Think about it: for a given speed and gear ratio, the rate of rotation of the cranks necessarily follows, regardless of whether you are "soft pedaling" or not. Consider a fixed gear drivetrain. Even if you are not applying pressure to the pedals, the cranks will spin at a certain rate depending upon how fast you are going.
Yeah huh?
"there is minimum cadence that is required in order to engage the cranks (the minimum cadence so that you are not free pedaling)."
Sounds a lot like just pedaling cadence. Now there may be a difference between FORCE on the pedals. If you pedal with more force than necessary to maintain steady-speed, you'll accelerate. If you with exactly the required amount of force to overcome air-drag and rolling-resistance, you'll maintain steady-speed. Even when you're initially soft-pedaling with less force than required, you're
STILL at that same cadence.
Then anything slower than normal cadence is really the same as coasting. There's not enough force to maintain steady speed. It's actually possible with soft-pedaling to pedal slower than necessary, but still have the crank & rear-hub pawls engaged with barely any force.