My hip flexors just burst into flames reading that.

edzo is a sewing machine.

Um,
What if you live in the land of hills and you own a triple and let’s say you are in your lowest gear when climbing and still can’t get above 50's?
What cadence is expected when climbing?

well, whatever you need to get up a hill. steady 60-70 is fine, or go granny and go up at 110rpm

if you are in the lowest gear, and you can't break 50, then do not use hills for rpm training,
but shoot for 60rpm on that hill next time, and stick it


but I bet there are downhills too, right ? there is your high rpm training

yeah stuff starts to hurt at mile 5, but by mile 6 it doesn't hurt, it goes away

lungs start a little burn then that settles down...but 130 sustained is plenty
huge enough.


I practice most of my high cadence either at home on the V-bike, or
on the road or mup with the singlespeed. when i have gears I generally
just use whatever makes me fastest or most efficient, which is about
110 sustained, bursts/tailwinds/downhill up to 140-170, hills 70 or above,
[on the SS though, some hills >15% I am pretty much in survival mode]

whatever works.

I'd have to say that there is a difference between hipster gearing and track points race gearing...

And I most certainly would not ride the latter as a commuter.

I posted on the wrong thread. I know realize the subject of this thread is not
"Acceptable climbing cadence"
Sorry all.
I will try to keep my incompetence to a minimum in the future.

Wait a minute...

180+ rpm? Are we sure about the "rpm" part?

180 rpm would be putting one foot -- say, the left foot -- through three revolutions per second. Those of you who were in marching band would realize that this would be like marching at a tempo of 360 beats per minute, or six footfalls (left-right-left-right-left-right) per second.

I just want to be sure what we're talking about here.

YouTube "Theo Bos World Record" or similar. You will have a new appreciation for footspeed.

------------
talking about one magnet on one crankarm and having it record each time the magnet sweeps the sensor
------------

KevinTX is posting 180, and that is actually slow for some peoples idea of cadence training.
(for me, it is the bottom level of the ultra-fast zone)


dude I can max out at 211 rpm, and it isn't pretty, but I can do it after 5 minutes of warmup

and there are others who can trump that by a large factor

yes it is insanely fast. it took some training for me to get there. I couldn't crack 189 initially,
but after some practice, I can do 179 standing and 211 sitting

yeah it aches the inside of my skull...can't describe that feeling but I am hoping
for 230 this winter when I go back to my cadence blowout sessions

it doesn't mean much for normal riding, but what it does for me, is at any particular time
I choose, on nearly any ride in any terrain, i can jump to a high rpm and squirt up over or through
something and give my legs a rest from low rpm grinding. that is the real deal with ultra high rpm
practice. you can jump between 70rpm to 140 rpm all day and give your legs a rest, but maintain
forward speed. when i train at 140, 110 is a snooze. when i practice >200, I am resting at 169...
and 110 seems too slow to even mention. in fact after >200 practice, my natural cadence is usually
133 for about 5 minutes before I decide to lower leg speed. it's weird how the muscles work like that

Get a fixed gear bike with mellow gearing (42x16=69, for example). Find a long gentle hill. Ride down it. Feel your feet spin like mad. Repeat until you spin the pedals instead of the pedals spinning you.

edzo... you crazy... youuuuuuuu crazy!!!

I am not worthy

it started as an experiment years ago, to see how much i could do, period.

when i popped 189, I didn't know how high I could go after that. so i just practice. I started using spinervals and when coach troy sez go as fast as you can, I took it literally (if the workout suffered, so be it) and I found that it presents a whole new dynamic of suffering and mental intensity that just cannot be felt any other way.

to fire your large leg muscles and supply oxygen and remain alert through >200 is ...well.......you gotta try it yourself

This doesn't always work as well as you might think. It's really easy to let your legs go limp and let gravity do the work for you which doesn't improve your cadence at all.

Rollers are much better, as is motor pacing while on a track bike.

I'm sure you're right that motor pacing and rollers are far superior, but this had a lot of value for me when I first started trying to improve my cadence. It was a way of getting used to having my feet spin a lot faster than I was used to. Then I focused on keeping my butt on the saddle and that forced me to stay on top of the pedals and spin smoothly.

Yeah it definitely works, but you have to really concentrate (at least in my experience). I usually end up getting lazy or just simply forgetting what I'm doing and letting my legs to limp. You can't really do that when you are on rollers or motorpacing.

This video?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RnOSKYezZ-Q

That's not 180 rpm; he's maxing out at about 155+ after he comes down off the far turn onto the back straight. I'm not saying it's slow, I'm just saying that it's nowhere near 230 like edzo is talking about reaching.

For comparison -- these guys are going about 190 beats per minute, which is like saying that they would be doing 95 rpm on a bike:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vt-1BqQcD3E&feature=related

I hope we're not getting revolutions per minute mixed up with beats per minute.

(and, yeah, I checked both of these vids against a metronome)

And, I'm not saying that greater than 200 rpm isn't possible -- rock drummers who double-bass also get their feet moving at about that speed.

I can hit over 170 without trying super hard. And that's with 47 year old legs. I think if I worked at it I MIGHT be able to do over 200 eventually.

Some of you guys are killing me !!! I mean ,I'm more than sure I can spin my bike way over 100 rpm's but at a higher gear and my bike wont go 27 mph ... what I'm looking is to bring my cadence higher but I want to go faster too,I more than sure I will accomplish it no doubt.. but some of you can spin over 170 rpm's ?? I bet that bike will not be going really fast or if is going fast will be for 20 seconds..there are a lot of super man out there. Jezzzzzzzzzz !!

If you want to go faster, then cadence is not what you want. Pedal stroke is the first and foremost thing. Cadence is merely a consequence of pedal stroke efficiency, given the gearing variations.

Make sure your pedal stroke is developed and you know how to use the upstroke as opposed to the downstroke. Going faster means acceleration and maintaining that speed for a certain amount of time. That's all about pedal stroke.

Some will comment that the upstroke is offset by the downstroke of the other leg. But do your own experiment and try exaggerating the upstroke during accereration and you will notice the difference, hopefully an improvement. Learning how to accelerate is the first step to going "faster".

incorrect.

Actually if you want to go fast you have to be able to spin, top end in a 52/11 at 75rpm is about 26mph. If you want to get to 30mph+ your going to have to spin >85rpm

I've got a question about these cadences that are being thrown around.

Ummmmm, what's it really worth. Isn't kind of like a car engine. You can rev the nuts off of an engine, but if it's out of it's powerband, then you're just making noise.

Isn't the whole idea of having gears on a bike to keep you in a cadence range that produces the most speed as opposed to just spinning like crazy? Is there something I'm missing or is this just a pi$$ing contest?

If you were just concerned with spinning at 200 rpm, then wouldn't you build the bike around it with extra low gears, 150mm cranks, etc.? I was thinking about this thread on my ride today and decided that I just didn't get it.

The point of being able to spin like that is this:

You gain the ability to accelerate faster, and you have a smoother, and theoretically more effective transfer of power.

It's also nice in crits or road races. Instead of dropping it from your 53x16 to your 53x14 to launch your attack, which everyone and their mother will be able to hear, you just throw another 20rpm into the pedals and hit out.

Not to mention the obvious necessity of it in track racing.

How fast is this BarracksSi?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=F7K4O7YTLQQ