Which I understand - I've been trying to keep to lower gears when it seems practicable. In fact, I probably don't go to higher gears when I probably should - for a while I ran in 1st gear on both sides just to try to build that up. My guess is that I'm not used to higher cadence riding when it comes to having to put force behind it. But as I said before, I don't really notice any appreciable difference in force running in 2nd gear on the front and 1st in the back compared to first on both.

I'm not sure where a good place would be for that around here, though I did find a spot where I get about 5 miles or so of not-so-hilly space. But still some climbs involved. (see below)

I would guess it's relatively standard. Three gears front, Seven back. Overall, I agree it's relatively flat - it's not a huge climb overall. The main feature of the terrain here is that it's more like a roller coaster than anything sustained. Most of what is available where I'm at involves short steep climbs followed by either short flat areas or similar descents. For example, going out of my house involves a 26ft climb over .1 mile. It doesn't sound too awfully bad for someone seasoned and isn't a severe thing to me now, but I considered it an accomplishment and always needed a rest taking it until about 2 or 3 months into it after I started.



There's some worse climbs and some better climbs out and about, but there's nothing incredibly consistent and it averages out over time to "relatively flat" - and I can see that if I were to plot my entire rides on this software. Maybe that's been part of my problem too - trying to get a relatively stable speed going over time.



There's the hill I referred to in my first post that I had to rest on. 39 ft over .2 mile, but it illustrates what I've been talking about - the short steep grades. Though I did make some progress on the longest sustained climb I'm aware of in this area, 115 ft over .68 miles without resting at a good rate of speed in 2nd gear back (I am getting stronger that way), though really not as steep as some of the others.

I usually run my bike in 2nd gear front most of the time, and drop it into 3rd gear front on flats and some downhills, though I usually don't get the opportunity to run in any one gear long for having to shift back for another terrain feature change. I tried it in first gear front (and back) on a hill when I was getting tired once, but didn't notice a difference in the force I was exerting so I switched the front gear back to second.

Thanks for the advice. So where should I start to increase cadence? Just putting the bike into first gear on both sides and just trying to pedal as fast as comfortably possible? In looking at the other posts, I notice that I can bounce on the saddle if I push myself hard enough - that might point to something out of adjustment? I notice as well that I can sit up on the bike and achieve a higher degree of both power and cadence on hills. So could it be my bike is out of fit in some way or is it me being out of shape for riding a bike in the "normal way"? I typically have been trying to figure things out as I go, so I'm sure I might have something wrong somewhere.