How am I able to get my cadence higher without music or a computer? I don't want to wear headphones and currently too broke to buy a computer with cadence. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks

How to determine cadence by counting.

As far as increasing it, just drop a gear or two lower than what you would normally choose for a given situation

Uh, pedal faster?

Is this some kind of trick question? Or did you think you were in the roadie forum or something?

Let me clarify. I want to know my cadence. Sorry for the stupid question. I will try the counting thing tomorrow on my commute. Thanks.

Buy a bike computer with a cadence sensor.

Ditto. You will be happy you did. Buying a computer with a cadence sensor was the second best biking purchase I made.

yeah, just pedal faster

Cadence meter for less than $12 or only $10 if you already have spare magnets or free if you already have a regular speed computer:
https://www.instructables.com/id/Very...-Your-Bike-12/

I recommend wrapping some electrical tape around the magnet since I couldn't find any glue that held up to all the vibrations I had on my route.

Years of high school & college marching band practice as well as Army drill and PT cadence have pretty well given me an internal metronome. All it takes is a little practice and get a little rhythm in your mind.

Ride the bike at a pace that's comfortable to you. Cadence will improve with fitness. Counting seconds in your head while monitoring crank rpm will also give you a reasonable good idea of cadence...say XX rpm in 30 seconds.

I usually run 53T front, and 19-15T rear on a 700c tire. My nominal cadence is 65-75 rpm. Higher cadence burns more energy, but it also provides a more stable pace if you encounter a sudden burst of head wind. Lower cadence conserves energy. The downside is frequent shifting if you ride in hill country.

You are the MOTOR. Shift to overdrive if you want to save gas. Downshift a few gears if you want to pass or climb a hill. Novide riders try to maintain the same cadence all the time. That's a mistake. A car will normally run between 2000 and 2500 rpm. Some with drop as low as 1650 rpm at freeway speed to save gas.

Turning low cadence does not automatically conserve energy, it just switches where the load is placed on your body.

You turn big gears and you'll deal more with muscle fatigue/ Lactic buildup from the anerobic stress, you spin higher cadence and it'll put more emphasis on the aerobic system where your legs will feel fine but your heart and breathing will be stressed.
You need to find the good point in the middle where anerobic and aerobic are stressed equally in most cases. This changes though as you tire in different ways. Hills, downhills etc also require different strategies.

If you merely upshift for lower cadence you lose speed unless you push harder - load is on legs
If you downshift to increase cadence you may also lose speed unless you spin faster - load on lungs and heart.

This is simplifying it a bit but is more accurate than the car analogy.

+1, explained well!

Okay, in the interest of tossing out all the crazy ideas, here's one:

I heard somewhere that the Bee Gees song "Staying Alive" is exactly the right tempo for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which IIRC was 100 bpm. So if you play that song in your head and pedal along with the rhythm of the song, and speed up until it sounds right, your cadence will be somewhere around 100 rpm. If that song isn't to your liking, well, I can sympathize... but you should be able to find something you like in the right neighborhood (shoot for 90 rpm).

HP = 550 ft-lbs per sec. In layman's language, it's the amount of force applied to the pedal per unit of time. In theory, the amount of power needed to propel a bike at 20 mph with a given mass should be the same. The 90 rpm goal is a joke because it does not factor in the leg strength. An idividual with "tiny" legs may benefit with 80-90 rpm, but it may not work well for a body builder/long distance runner.

Body builders are not fast cyclists. Go for 90rpm. 65rpm will wreck your knees, not to mention kill you on a climb.

Contador:

There's probably an optimum cadence for most efficient energy utilization. If you think about somebody going as fast as they can on a flat course in their lowest gear, they're probably riding pretty inefficiently and wasting a lot of energy on unecessary leg movements or on bouncing on their seat, rather than on actually propelling the bike.

Do you even ride much?

How are body builders and long distance runners legs equal? Bad comparison.

You are looking at the simple numbers and acting like that determines it all, but you are neglecting the whole physiology variable in how your body produces the power. Your body is not a continuous output engine that will always make the same power, the same way, as long as there is fuel. Certain "parts" of the system wear at different rates and at different amounts, and will lose ability or gain it depending on how you manage your body.

Go read any cycling training book.

Exactly, and you'll feel it too. Especially at mile 80 or so.

Actually, optimal distance running pace is also 80-95 paces/min (pace = two individual steps or 'strides'). I have never met a body builder/distance runner though. It seems those sports would not compliment each other well.

I don't see how bodybuilders have anything to do with this discussion. Come to think of it, I don't understand bodybuilding at all; what's the point? And that's not a rhetorical or facetious question! If someone can explain the point of bodybuilding to me, please do. In my ignorance, I venture to suggest that bodybuilding would not make anyone a better cyclist.

Track cyclists tend to be pretty muscular.

Bodybuilders often have superior leg strength vs. the average cyclist. Therefore, they can apply higher torque to the pedals over much longer distance without fatigue. A large mass concentration below the waist is also not optimized for high rpm. Think of the leg as a reciprocating piston with a velocity vector of +, 0, - during one crank revolution. Large mass with constant change in velocity vector is wasted energy.

Heart and lung activities increase at high rpm because additional oxygen is needed at the legs. Let's say I'm cruising around at 15 mph with a cadence of 60 rpm. Once I drop to a lower gear to raise my cadence to 90 rpm while maintaining the 15 mph speed limit, my heart rate will increase...burn more Cal.

In summary, one can apply less pedal force with more rpm, or more pedal force with less rpm to propel a given mass at a XX mph. Those who prefer to burn more calories can raise the rpm (more energy to move the legs). The sweet spot for most cyclists is 60-90 crank rpm. I tend to stick to the lower end for cruising, and higher end for high speed pursuit.

It's a combination of building your strength and sculpting your body. Like many things, it's the challenge that draws people. I'm not a body builder but I used to work for one and I don't find it terribly mysterious. It's not really for me though.

One misconception is that body builders have 0 flexibility which isn't true, -at least not for the better ones. Maintaining range of motion and having strength through that range is very important. Cyclists can benefit tremendously from strength training though I don't think body builders make for the best cyclists.

Actually, if you put in a lot of miles on a bike you may need to do some form of weight bearing exercise to prevent bone loss (being it weight lifting, running, high impact aerobics, or whatever)

They can apply higher torque but I'm not sure that they can do it for a long distance. Body building is not an endurance sport. If I wanted somebody to pull a boat trailer out of the water on a bike, I'd go for the body builder. But I doubt they could win a bike race of any distance with an actual cyclist.

Exactly. Which is why sprinters have larger legs and distance runners have skinnier legs. Not all muscle fiber is the same. There are two types of muscle fiber that you can develop. They can do one job or the other but not both. Bodybuilding is fast twitch development. Endurance is slow twitch. While a bodybuilder could definitely apply more torque for a few revolutions, their endurance is short lived.

Slow-twitch fibers:

• Primarily burn fat for fuel, an almost limitless supply of fuel for even the leanest athlete.
• Are very resistant to fatigue: they are built to go and go, all day.
• Recover quickly when allowed to rest.

Fast-twitch fibers:

• Burn glycogen for fuel. This glycogen is stored within the muscles and is in relative short supply, about 2000 calories for a well-trained, well-fueled athlete.
• Fatigue quickly, are NOT built to go all day.
• Take a long time to recover before they can be used again.

You could get a metronome. Usually they have belt clips on them, and you can get one that beeps at a high pitch.