There is of course internal energy loss. I already mentioned that it’s now documented by Formenti’s research, and the typical values of internal work expressed as watts/kg were listed in my previous post at the various cadences he measured.

We also know intuitively that we do this work because it takes some finite amount of work to pedal just enough not to coast at a particular cadence versus not pedaling at all and coasting (or to avoid braking if we are riding a fixed gear bike.). And the fact that you can brake on FG by not doing this work shows that the bike then must do work on your legs to move them, thus slowing the bike.

Otto

I totally agree with all of that, it's just that I wouldn't ride a FG on a bet at this stage of my life so I don't feel qualified to comment. I think I'd kill myself on the first downhill, hard to avoid a lifetime of instinctive pedaling habits that'd probably rip my legs off.

Me included.

A cycling buddy of mine, half my age, just rode Seattle to Crater Lake - 1200km and 12k meters - fixed. Thinking about the extreme cadence he rode makes me shudder. I tend to think there's an optional cadence for all day riding, but he finished with the geared crowd, and he looked no more whipped than the others at the 500 mile water stop. I currently have no desire to try a 1200 fixed... but I might give it a whirl for 200km 😀. Then again maybe 100 😁.

Yup, I believe I was accused of claiming that by another poster, so I was making it clear that I hadn't claimed any such thing. I actually "liked" your comment.

The easiest way to "feel" the effect of the internal work involved in pedalling a higher cadence is to do a high cadence drill at a relatively low power output. For example if I spin at 130 rpm at only say 60-70% threshold power, my HR soon raises close to threshold level even though the power output is much lower. Basically, for any given power output, high cadence works your cardio system harder and low cadence requires a higher muscle strength. So cadence is always a trade-off between cardio stress and muscle fatigue. The reason why a generally higher cadence is favoured by pretty much all pro cyclists is because recovery from cardio stress is much faster than recovery from muscle fatigue. These guys develop a massive aerobic engine that can run all day. Power output is simply a function of cadence x torque, so if you want to put out more power you only have these 2 levers to pull. Pros pull both of them!

Engineers are well aware of efficiency, or lack of it. A lot of the energy we expend in cycling is just wasted as heat. Not that different to an IC engine in that respect. I agree you will have better "efficiency" at 60 rpm vs 90 rpm, but being more efficient doesn't translate directly to being faster (and I'm only saying this as a technical point, because I realise you are not racing). Power output and efficiency are 2 different parameters and often opposed. Again we see this with IC engines.

I suspect that if you focus on development of the muscle strength, then those recovery time differences shrink to non-existence. I think the issue is that the combination of high muscle strength and low body weight (which matters a lot on hills and in acceleration) is rare, while one can develop the aerobic engine without the relatively high weight needed to maintain the muscle strength.

It's why I find what pros do to be nearly irrelevant to considering what's optimum for me, my wide frame is not suited to a low BMI which all of the distance riders generally have.

Efficiency may not be directly translated to speed, but hard for me to believe that one can be fast over long distances if one is inefficient, human energy being a very finite resource.
What makes me fast (as a 60 y.o. non-racer fast) is the high torque pushing the big gear over long distance. That's where I'm an outlier..

Nice to see this thread on cadence.

I can remember ridding my new Liotto in the Dolomites out of Vicenza Italy in the 70's. My Italian friends coaching me about cadence and pace as I learned to stroke those friction shifters to coax my chain into the needed gear. Often I caused sour faces on my group as I ground into the next gear like a child trying to shift with feet to short for a slippery clutch on an old Chevy. Pace was important. Cadence was important. Staying with the pack, was important. It was months before I even tried drafting. I was 20.

At 68 my pace is slow; and my cadence slow too. A fast light cadence often causing me a snapping cramp... Ha It's just pitiful!

But old guys ride and often spin on the down hill run like they used to. Happy Happy, Joy Joy...

The basic problem with bigger muscles is that a) they are heavier and b) they consume more oxygen. So it all goes against working in that direction to get faster on a bike.

It's not a matter of being inefficient. Cyclists who ride competitively at relatively high cadence (and that is all of them in today's pro-peloton) are as efficient as possible at those high cadences. It's just not "inherently" efficient to ride at a higher cadence. But they do minimise those losses by pedalling as efficiently as they possibly can at a given cadence. They can probably ride with the same efficiency at 10 or more rpm than I could. So that means they simply produce more power for the same "overhead" in pedalling.

What you are doing is effectively conditioning yourself to be as fast as you can be with the limitation of a very low cadence. If you wanted to get faster (and I fully realise that is not your aim) you would need to take a different approach unless there is some physical reason why you can't pedal a higher cadence.

If you're having fun, your knees aren't hurting, you're getting fitter, and losing weight then your cadence really doesn't matter. Seriously. Seems you're doing fine.

If you have a goal of a sub 4 hour century or winning local crits then you need a high cadence for the reasons mentioned by PeteHski where your heart and lungs can 'run' at high output for longer than your muscles can. The bicycle allows you to transfer muscle load to cardio load for the same power output.
This is why the Tour de France winners and Hour record holders have an average cadence of about 110.

Right. For a 60 kg cyclist, the extra load of 90 rpm vs 70 rpm is only about 25 watts. Not a big price to pay to keep the high effort episodes as high cadence episodes and avoid muscle fatigue. Very important when you rode 120 yesterday, 120 miles today and will do another 120 tomorrow.

Otto

When I first get into cycling, my LBS told me to try to keep my cadence between 80 to 90 to avoid any knee problems.
Since wanted something cheap, I have my speedometer sensor installed with the left crank and get the cadence (divide by 10) shown on the speed of computer :speedy:.

Average cadence for a ride depends upon terrain.

On a flat ride the average will be closer to one's typical spinning rpm,

but most folks climb at a lower cadence so a hilly ride will have a lower average.


Kudos for beating the straw horse of "efficiency".

I actually don't agree with this at all, at least as far as I go. I don't think I'm capable of going faster by decreasing gears and increasing cadence because I am not willing to lose the amount of weight to make that effective. It would put me at a point of thinness I've found unhealthy in my past. And frankly, I find the muscle strength to be more useful. Fatigue is definitely not an issue with me, as I've said repeatedly, my weekly routine is a 100 mile ride on Saturday and a 50 mile ride on Sunday, followed by an additional 3 25 mile rides during the week. At 60 y.o., I don't think it reasonable to assume there's a lot of range up in terms of endurance at this point, and I have done a few 130 mile rides this year as well.

I'm going to be honest here--I don't race, but I cannot recall a single time in the past few years where I have been passed by a rider within a decade or two of my own age, except for transient times where I immediately go past them when I resume my normal speed. I really don't have any reason to believe that building an entirely different form of conditioning would give me results like that.

I ain't never gonna be a 60kg cyclist.

Not to insert myself into this very interesting debate :), but my input (or is it my output :)) is to not worry too much about cadence and ride what feels comfortable. Try different cadences in various situations. For example, if you have a hill with a long, steady grade, try riding the first 1/3 in a gear that gives you a cadence around 60, then shift to a lower gear and go the same speed with a slightly higher cadence for the next 1/3, and finally finish off the last 1/3 in the next lowest gear with an even higher cadence. You can do something similar on flat roads. FWIW, my climbing cadence is probably about 15rpm lower than my flatland cadence. I don't have a cadence monitor, but in general, my cadence increases as the effort increases. But also, and to a lesser extent, my cadence tends to decrease as my fitness increases.

I need to build some muscle -- too skinny. Guess I need to go ride some hills and push the big gears at a slow cadence.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting you do anything differently. I'm just discussing the limitations of what you are choosing to do by riding at such a low cadence and high torque. My best friend is a big guy, weighs in at around 95 kg and up until last year his preferred cadence was pretty low, around 70 rpm. He's been cycling a very long time with lots of experience, but never raced. He wanted to get faster and his intuitive approach to this was to increase his leg strength by heavy lifting and grinding away on the rowing machine etc. But then I introduced him to structured training via Sufferfest. He bought a smart trainer, hooked up his spare bike and got stuck into it. Now one thing Sufferfest (and most other structured training programs) does is teach you to build a higher cadence and get comfortable with it. Over the course of 12 months he went from averaging around 70 rpm, to well into the mid-80s. He didn't lose much weight and is still around 95 kg. But he is faster on the bike and now sees the benefits of having a higher comfortable cadence range. He hasn't totally transformed his riding style but he doesn't grind away anywhere near as much as he used to. His average HR is a little higher as you would expect with the extra cardio load, but he can produce more sustainable power from it.

It would be interesting to see how you ride as it sounds pretty unusual. You say leg fatigue isn't an issue, but it would be IF you chose to really push yourself. Again I'm not suggesting you actually do that. It's just a hypothetical discussion and you are riding for pleasure and your legs are obviously fine with the load. But if you really did want to get faster for any reason, a higher cadence would be the way to achieve it (probably the only way in your particular case!). If you went from sub-60 rpm to around 70 rpm I would put money on it you would be faster within a couple of months once your cardio system and pedalling technique adjusted to it. It would be an interesting experiment to try on a ride if nothing else.

Just don't hurt yourself!

You lost me at Sufferfest.

Seriously, I don't agree that I'm not pushing myself, but this is turning into a major thread hijack, and I was actually going to sit this one out until you know who said you know what. (Just kidding him about that, btw).

Interesting if that might work for you. Has weight training been recommended to you as a way of putting on weight?

I think I'd recommend pushing the big gears on the flat to start. A bit less risky on the joints.