Does cadence drop with age?
 

I started riding last March. For a non athletic 62 y/o, I'm pretty happy with my performance. I'm a "B+" rider. I can run with the A group for about 15 - 20 mi, but then I have to back off.

I try to do some 90% HR intervals each week (warm up, ride to 90 - 95 % for 6 min, rest for 2 min, repeat 6 times.) It has been very helpful in improving my speed and endurance.

In all my rides since I got my 305 edge for Christmas, I find that my cadence averages about 80. I try to get it up, but at the end of the day, I'm back in the 80 +/- range. Today I tried to say on the small ring all day, but I always seem to end up on the big ring.

Since I'm new to the sport, I don't know what cadence I might have been at 30 years ago. Has anyone out there who has been a long time rider seen their cadence drop over time? Should I work on some cadence pyramids to try to ramp it up a bit?

At my age I'm at the end of the age/performance curve, and I suspect that curve has a rather sharp downward curve to it as the years progress. I just want to try to get as good as I can.

At 75 my cadence is between 60 and 80. Good enough for me.

My average cadence in my 20's was high 80s - mid 90s and now at 52 I'm still in that range except for racing then it's 100-115 and even higher on the velodrome.
I use a 53/39 175mm with a 11-23 cassette during racing season and a 12-25 on training wheels for the off season.
Track bike gearing 50x15 170mm, then 51x15 (for motorpacing).

I believe cadence is trainable. For a new rider you are doing very well. The intervals you do help greatly in improving speed and raising your lactate threshold. Up North we have a 3 to 4 month indoor season (that could be a day or two for you in FL) where any hard training rides are done on a trainer or rollers. You can increase you average cadence but will need to concentrate some efforts to do it.

Over the past few years I have attended an indoor cycling class where the participants brought their own trainers to the structured program. One of the priorities of the class is to improve pedaling technique which included higher cadences. The instructor broke the class down into different levels from E to A with A being the most advanced. He would assign cadence numbers to each level then lead us through various sets using our easiest gear ratio. As the season progressed so did the required cadence and length of the drill. For instance: Spin Up's Drill - "B level", 1 min @115 rpm, 1 min @ 120 rpm, 1 min @ 125 rpm, 1 min @ 130 rpm, 30 seconds @ 135 rpm, 30 seconds @ 115 rpm, 1 min @ 130 rpm, continuing back down to 115 rpm. At the end of the season the B level began at 115 rpm, progressed up every 1 minute by 5 rpm's until 145 rpm's with 1 min @ 145 rpm, 1 min @ 115 rpm, 1 min @ 150 rpm, 1 min @ 115 rpm, 1 min @ 155 rpm, 1 min @ 115 rpm, 30 seconds @ 160 rpm, 1 min @ 115 rpm and topped out at 170 rpm for 30 seconds. The starting point for the E or "new" riders began at 95 rpm.

The purpose of the high cadence is to train the muscles to fire in sequence without wasting effort. If you don't pedal correctly you will not make the high cadence #'s. I used to think that a cadence of 90 was high. My average cadence is currently in the mid-90's unless I'm doing hard efforts on hills or muscular endurance efforts in training. In races I have to monitor my cadence because sometimes I'll be @ 105-110 rpm and causing my HR to spike.

I believe cadence CAN go down with age -- say, after 75-80 years of age; up until then, either a medical condition or just plain lesser fitness would be the only reasons. TOP SPEED, of course, is a different story!

In the 70's as a teen, I know I was a masher; my speedometer back then was mech, so there was no cadence measurement, and I didn't even know about cadence! But I could regularly, and repeatedly, break 30mph in traffic. (10-spd Schwinn)

Today, on my MTB, I haven't touched 30mph in about four years. I'm normally in the mid-to-high 80's for cadence, and fatigue will make me downshift -- creating an 'artifical' higher cadence -- before I will slow my pedal stroke.

The funny thing is, over any distance under 10-12 miles, I'm faster now than I was at 16! HOO-RAH for maintaining speed!

I don't know that the cadence changes but the gear you push definitely does.

I have you by 9 years (61) and my cadence stats are about the same. Climbing 70 to 85, off the front 90 to 100, sitting in 100 to 115, sprinting 140, pursuit 105 to 110 and motor pacing at the track 110 to 120 rpm (47/15 172.5 cranks). I use a compact with an 11/26 or 11/23 cassette on my road bike.

+1 My coach continues to have me work on pedaling technique on recovery rides and include one leg pedaling drills. My typical recovery ride is warmup, 4 minutes 100, 3 minutes 110, 2 minutes, 120, 1 minute 130 and 30 seconds 140, rest 5 minutes and repeat. The goal is getting comfortable riding at 140 rpm.

I find my cadence getting higher all the time. I'm really not into racing, but I find a higher cadence easier to spin in big winds. I'm almost 70 so I think, or hope I can keep that up for a while, but right now it's not a problem.

FWIW, you don't "wind up" in the big ring, you shift onto it. if you don't want to be there, don't touch the lever...
Having said that, I started riding in college, and I'm still at it at age 65. Like a lot of novices, I was a masher at first--nobody counted cadence in those days, but I probably averaged 50 or so. When I finally found out that you were supposed to pedal faster in a lower gear, in my 40s, i focused on it and tried to do it. It didn't take long for 9.0 to seem natural, and I stay pretty much around that cadence now.
Of course i'm about three gears lower now, but the cadence is the same...

I started riding "seriously" when I was 21; all the books said to learn to spin, so I stayed in the small ring and learned to spin. The funny thing is, once your nervous system gets used to spinning at 90 rpms, you can go into a race, on the big ring, and your legs are still comfortable pushing the bigger gear at 90 rpm. You can't help it; the body just gravitates to spinning at that tempo as long as it can.

You can always tell it's a beginner because they're in the bike's biggest gear. Some can hammer away and keep up with your 90 rpm speed on the 39x15, but once you pop it into the big ring and quickly wind back up to 90 rpm, they don't have the leg speed to keep up. Same thing on the hills. I'll often have beginners in the big gear pass me when I'm on the 42x16 fixed gear. I spin up and sit on their wheel, crank it up to over 150 rpms on the descents, then when we hit the climb, I keep the fixed gear going, dropping maybe a half-dozen rpm, but the beginner doesn't have the leg strength to maintain the huge gear on the climb, or if he shifts down, he doesn't have the leg speed to keep up.

I just love keeping up with dudes on their carbon fiber frames with the fancy wheels and 10- or 11-speed drivetrains while I'm on my steel Rodriguez fixie, and then dropping them on the climbs when I'm not even a climber! Oh, and then there's always the young guys getting dropped by some 59-year-old guy on a fixed gear; I love it!

But then I'll sometimes run across a real racer who spins a 53x18 at 90 rpms in training, and I'm left like a dog in the dust...

L.

Back in the day (1980s) I was told that I couldn't spin with a 175mm crank, but I did! When I started track racing in 2007 I started with a 165mm cranks, but switch the next season to 170mm (felt like a humming bird on the 165). I'm still learning to spin up climbs, got those bad hablits from the 53/42 13x21 in my youth:lol:

Whoa! I thought 110 was pretty quick. I'm going to have to give this work out a try tomorrow.

I do agree it's trainable. I read something that got me interested in a higher cadence (actually just paying attention to cadence) so I got my first computer really just for the cadence function. I worked on keeping and being comfortable spinning at 95 to 105 and really got to like the feel of it. This was in the flats. Moved to the rolling hills of the Piedmont and starting spending some time in the Southern Appalachians and found my cadence varied depending on the inclination but that high cadence spin training paid off for helping build up momentum going down preparing to go up. When I was doing a long climb I never looked at my cadence. I just worked on keeping my self just the other side of blowing up. As the season progressed (and I lost weight) I'm sure my cadence and speed increased. Trying to keep the same cadence on the flats as you move up to higher gearing is great strength training for me. I'll establish a comfortable spin and then click it up a notch and watch those RPMs and hold it til it's burning. Recover and repeat. Bump it up two notches, etc.

When you get into that range, what kind of gear are you pushing. I find that if I get over 100, I lose power. I seem to be most efficient in the low 80s to low 90s range (as measured by speed, not a power meter). That just seems to be my sweet spot. Granted, I'm not doing any training specifically aimed at raising cadence.Am I missing something?

Jet, thanks for the info and encouragement.

FWIW, this past winter was the coldest I've ever experienced in Fla. Indeed, we usually have about 2 weeks of cold weather. Many a ride was cancelled. Us wimps don't normally ride below 55 or so. When it was in the 30's and 40's ever morning for months on end, it was tough getting a group ride out. Last year I don't ever remember a ride cancelled due to cold.

In my twenties and thirties I spun at around 110 RPM and now it is about 80ish.

Some people are spinners and some are mashers.

I am close to Loose Chain,,,In my 40's i was at 95+- and now at 67 I get in the 100's from time to time, but am usually 85 or so... Bud

Here is the deal. This is a recovery workout designed to pump max blood through the system / muscles at recovery power / effort / heart rate AND improve the neuromuscular capability. So ideally, you want to be in z1 or low z2. I typically do this on the trainer in my little chain ring in an easy gear at 100 to 120 watts at maybe 120 to 130 heart rate. If I am on the road, I need a smooth section of road that is pretty flat and I use a very easy gear. Pick a gear that is stupidly easy because it will still be hard. The goal is not about power but pumping blood for recovery and improving leg speed.

Improving ones leg speed is a good thing. One can always choose to spin slower but it is not possible to just decide to spin faster without first developing the capability.:)

I'm also 62+ also. I find it easier on my legs if I stay around 90 RPMs or more on the flats. On hills it varies depending on the steepness and length. But, I try to stay above 70 RPMs if I can. Mashing low RPMs wears me out very quickly!

I'm back into cycling after a 10 year sabbatical. I've realized that I lost a tremendous amount of core strength during that time. I'm SLOWLY racking up miles and speed and can feel the strength returning. At this point I HAVE to spin at high RPMs because there's no underlying strength in my legs. I'm constantly moving up and down the sprocket to maintain my leg speed.

My feeling is that eventually, cadence drops very abruptly, to zero....

Sorry, couldn't resist!

Actually, I think that it does decline somewhat with age, but that at any age, cadence can be raised with training.

+1 to that. I am missing it too. I know some really strong experienced riders who spin mostly in the 80s. They are not racers of course... just people who ride centuries at respectable speeds, sometimes for days on end. No defense of mashing intended, but I don't see spinning over 100 in my future. I'm 62 and can spin 90ish but 80-84 is really my sweet spot. But perhaps with more experience I will change my ways....

Spinning fast as part of recovery is interesting though...!

When I look at my cadence graphs
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/38673
I see that my cadence drops to zero at every stop light!

I have found that cadence is more affected by Fitness that any other factor. WHEN fit- I am around 90 to 95 but miss a few training rides- or at the start of the summer and I will be nearer 80.

Bingo! Cadence is as much about cardiovascular efficiency as anything else. A high cadence will push up the heart rate if you aren't conditioned for that rpm. There also is the concept of slow-twitch/fast-twitch fibres and the apparent drop-off in the effect of fast-twitch fibres as we age. But then, fast twitch might well be about 150rpm cadence... and not so much 90-100.

I think the OP is a bit optimistic. Either thhe A-grade group he is running with is a pretty weak one, or he is pulling our legs.

Everything thing drops with age. Including women's bosoms.

You be the judge. Here is my ride from today. The first 42 mi was the club ride, then I threw my bike into another guys truck and we all went for a bagel. I rode from the bagel shop to the aquatic center to watch my grandson's swimming lesson. Then I rode home.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/32590502


Each club sets it's own ranges for ride grades. I hung with the A group most of the ride, but on the long stretch out lox Road I got dropped after I did my pull at 26 mph. My heart rate was up about 95% and I just couldn't hold the wheel after my pull. We try to keep together on the Saturday rides except for some areas like lox road where we tend to form groups. I hang with the A group as long as I can. Some days its all the way. Today it was not.

I don't claim to be an A rider. I'm B+ at best. By our groups definition anyway. At my age I doubt if I'll ever really get to a solid A. On the Sunday ride there are enough people we have a lot more groups. The A and A + group start out together and string out after a while. The B and B+ start a few minutes later. The pick up people like me who drop out of the A group after a while.

On the plus side, I did stay on the small ring for most of the ride and kept my cadence up. 88 is the best average cadence I've had. Usually I'm about 80 - 82.

I must be missing something. I got to about 119 RPM this morning and my stroke started to cause me to start bouncing around in the saddle saddle a bit. I could hold 115 no problem. If I was sprinting I would have been dropping the RD but I was trying for that high cadence. I'm not sure I could get it much over 120. I'm not sure there would be much usable power for me there. I'm thinking like a 2 stroke motorcycle I've got a power band - 85 to 105 in my case - and over it I'm not creating efficiencies and under it extra effort with no speed.

I did notice as I warm up my cadence increases. I've known that but really paid no attention to it because I know I'm warming up. When I'm going I hold 90 to 95. I can move it up to 110 but I'll start to tire if I hold it even in a lower gear. I'll deliberately do that (move my cadence up) before a climb to have some leg "inertia" for the early part of the climb.

Interesting you mention that. I've noticed that, and as I think about it I'm wondering if it is slower reflexes as we age, or higher cadence requires a slightly different pedaling technique.

If it's just slower reflexes, I'm not sure there is much that can be done. Perhaps there is some training that might improve things a bit, but at 62 I wonder just how much improvement can be gained, and if the physical deterioration curve isn't overcoming the improvement curve. At some point it's inevitable.

As I sit here at the computer thinking about a high spin rate and bouncing, I wonder if it might not be minimized by thinking about pedaling while concentrating on the push forward, pull back phases of the pedaling stroke. That might decrease the bounce caused by trying to quickly push down. I'll have to give that a try next week. I'm going to start doing some cadence intervals a la Hermes' coach's formula. I've already plugged it into my 305 as a custom workout.

I'm also going to plug in A-Jet's cadence pyramid formula, but I'm not sure were to start. Once I get a feel for how I do with Hermes' interval, I'll modify Jet's Pyramid. Then on my Tuesday training session I'll alternate.

Today I did concentrate on keeping in the small ring except when over 25mph. That kept my cadence up, and I averaged 88 for 42 mi. That's unheard of for me.

Training at high cadence will improve the pedal stroke and eliminate the bouncing. Riders new to high cadence will push down too hard and not across the bottom causing the bounce. If you were to spend some time developing higher cadence using drills the bouncing would be the limiter to how high you can pedal. As you get more efficient the rpm's increase. Coming back from my ankle fusion surgery this winter was a re-learning process for my timing and mechanics when doing high cadence drills. I started out at the class's C level due to my bouncing at higher cadences where it felt like I was sitting on a jack hammer handle. After working on getting the balance back in my stroke I eventually worked back up to the A level and was able to maintain cadence of 190 for 30 seconds by April.

When doing the higher cadence spinups think about using your feet to produce the higher cadences and not pushing down with the legs. Make sure you are in a very easy if not the easiest gear. A trainer is even better for the drills due to the constant resistance. It's almost like telling your feet to "push-pull, push-pull, push-pull...", if that makes any sense. Oh yea, remember to breath.:D

It may take a few weeks to months of efforts to train the muscles to fire in sequence at higher cadences. I believe it is trainable since I couldn't maintain 120rpms for longer than 2 minutes three years ago.