I dont know how old your bike is but with older bikes you could not cross chain. That is big gear in front and biggest gear in back and same with the smallest gear. My triple 80's era bike is like that so I use the largest 3 or 4 gears in the rear with the smallest front gear, all middle gears in the rear with the middle gear in front, and only the smallest rear gears with the biggest front gear as conditions dictate. Also my bikes have shifters located on the downtube so I don't shift near as much as my ridin partners with the modern shifters. Sometimes I think riders with the convenient modern shifters shift entirely too much. I find often that it is more efficient to power over hills rather than continually having to let go of the handlebars with one hand to shift while climbing. This alos makes me more likely to shift to a low gear pryor to goin up a steep hill.
Good luck,

Gotta disagree with that. As a new rider, it helps me realize when I'm loafing - helps me better understand my "power bandwith" and where I work the best.

Might mean squat to many. But, the cadence screen is the one I'm almost always on.

IMO, if a new rider _wants_ to use it, probably one of the more useful tools out there. It is quite helpful in helping me understand _what_ is Too fast, too slow, and about right.

Might not have meant much to you, or others - has meant a lot to me.

Interestingly, I thought the more advanced riders would have little or no use, and it would be newbies that would use them more

Just thoughts after a quick scan~

Cadence sensor great, but don't kill your self over the people saying 80 or 90. Figure out what your current natural is (mine was 60) and try to improve on it incrementally. If you force yourself to make too big of a jump too soon, you just waste energy. It took half a season for my average to go from 60 to 70. But all the advice about shifting to keep your target cadence is spot on.

When you see a hill, pick a strategy and set your front based on that. If it is a big ring power over hill, then commit and do it. If it is a granny spin, then commit and do it.

The best way to throw a chain is to shift the front under load. If you think about it, the top of the chain is the portion under load. So your FD is working on tensioned chain, and your RD is on slack chain. Always plan to shift the rear in strenuous situations (you should still soft pedal but its way more forgiving), and not the front. If you have to shift the front, do a few hammer strokes, then soft pedal and switch.

You have a triple, so the small front ring is for climbing, the middle is for flats, and the large is for descents. Use the back gears for "fine adjustments."

With a compact, the "rule of thumb" is to stay in your large ring unless you're climbing.

Interesting. That's basically how I do it. I think it's because I have ridden single speed bikes for a long time, so when I move to my geared bike, I don't like to occupy my ride with constant gear changes. Usually, I keep the chain on the middle cog of a 9-speed cassette, and do most of my shifting up front on a double chainring: Small chainring for lower speeds and upward inclines, big chainring for faster speeds and downward inclines. So, on relatively flat terrain, I basically treat my bike as a two speed. Only when I hit steeper hills do I begin to shift up and down the rear cassette. This is not the most efficient use of the gearing, so I would not claim it is the "proper" way to shift, nor would I necessarily advise others to use this method. I just know it's how I like to ride.

I was saying 80-90 because that's the aerobic range, very similar to what people do when they're out for a jog. That's the cadence range I try to stick to when I'm riding for speed or fitness.

Now, a lot of the time when I'm on my short ride to work and back, I'm probably in the 60-70 range instead. I'm just not riding that hard, and that's more of a walking pace -- indeed, 60 rpm, or 120 beats per minute, is the default tempo for playing marching music (Sousa, King, etc).

When a rider is mashing a tall gear and pedaling slower than that... that's when they worry me. That's like climbing stairs with a heavy load or doing leg presses the entire time. If they're just tooling along on the boardwalk, that's fine; but if they're trying to climb or put out a lot of power, they're probably going to hurt themselves.

I messed around a bit with the gearing and found my front derailleur needs adjustment (made a thread on that and need to try and squeeze in the adjustment before Saturday).

Well duh, I should have figured that out. I have a looping studio on my ipod for guitar practice, I just set it at 80bpm and went to town. I was doing great--it was slower than I thought! Then I got home and realized I was counting wrong, counting every pedal push and not revolution. So now I know what 40 rpm feels like and what to avoid

Thanks for all the advice, cadence sensor is mounted and ready, just need to try it out a bit and see how it works. Even when I no longer need the cadence sensor the speedometer is really accurate and I can download my routes.

28 miles sounds like a long way, but it should be a bit easier seeing how I'll be on pavement instead of gravel and won't be lugging a trailer with 70 lbs of kids.