Carbonfiberboy 

Bouncing in the saddle is due to your neuro system not yet accommodating the demands of a faster cadence.

One of Rchung's study links: The relationship between cadence, pedalling technique and gross efficiency in cycling
discusses FE (force effectiveness) in the Introduction. Bouncing is caused by poor FE. When you pedal, your feet go around but the mass of your legs mostly goes up and down. In the middle of the pedal stroke they move up and down the fastest; at the top and bottom they don't move up and down at all. Cyclists push down on the forward pedal. When that pedal reaches the bottom of the stroke, they have to stop pushing down and actually pull up a little bit to decelerate them. It's the radial force at the bottom of the pedal stroke that lifts your butt off the saddle and causes bouncing. So what you have to learn to do is to convert that downward force on the pedal to a rearward force at the bottom of the stroke, what Greg LeMond described as "scraping mud off your shoe." Concentrate on keeping up the tangential force on the pedals and getting rid of the radial force.

This sounds complicated, but will happen naturally as you push your cadence higher. To start with, the easiest thing is to push your cadence up to where you are just starting to bounce on the flat and hold it there for a few minutes. Then ease off and let your legs rest at a slightly lower cadence. Repeat. Your neuromuscular system will figure it out all by itself, though I think it does help if you kinda explain what you want to your legs.

gregf83 

I think he probably got it sorted in the 2 1/2 yrs since he posted

Carbonfiberboy 

I had fun taking a refresher course by re-reading the whole thread, though. Nice to have threads like this which one can just point folks to.

RPK79

I saw it was a 2013 thread and just jumped to the last post. Who needs to read all that old outdated info about cadence?

dim

200 pound fat new cyclists like me

Doge

Find a few spin class songs that have the cadence you like and ply the song in your head.

There are some hard but effective ways to get faster cadence.
-Block out your biggest gears
-Ride big rollers and spin
-Ride a lower geared fixie (with brakes) down hills.

kingfishr

Cadence needs to be put into a greater context to make any meaningful decisions. I am 57 and have been riding for 30+ years, I'm pretty sure I was stronger in my 30's and 40's but have been more structured in my training the last 5 years. I also starting increasing my cadence 2-3 years ago to improve my performance and I'm not still not sure how to interpret the results. Let me show you my numbers for the last 4 years:

[TABLE="width: 372"]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2012[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2013[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2014[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]2015[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Cadence[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]73[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]77[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]80[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]85[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]speed[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]28.57[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]29.1[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]26.52[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]26.46[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]hr[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]143[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]141[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]145[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]142[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]avg max hr[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]183[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]183[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]186[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]183[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]single max hr[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]186[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]191[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]190[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]191[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]max 20min avg[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="align: right"]216[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]253[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]238[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2"]single best 20min avg[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]253[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]255[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]288[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]best ftp[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="align: right"]243[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]245[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]284[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]total km[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]7247[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]4609[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]6797[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]7669[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


My conclusion is that even if my performance in time trials is better than 2012, my overall performance when riding in a group is slightly poorer. Many of my Strava PRs on climbs are from 2012, and to give one of many examples I took an 8:46 PR on a cat4 climb in 2012 with a cadence of 62, https://www.strava.com/activities/10023289#915559928 and this was 88km into a 135km ride with 1300 vertical meters where we averaged 32.6 km/h. I have gone back and tried to improve my PR, saving myself for the climb and always come up 10-60 seconds short, always with a cadence over 80. Still good enough for the number 2 spot in my age group, but I a going for number 1. So my conclusion is that a higher cadence might help if you are overtaxing your legs but have available capacity in your cardiovascular system. But if your max HR is the limiting factor raising your average cadence my be counterproductive. So for 2016 I am going back to my 2012 training plan, with more low cadence high power drills, and try to lower my TT cadence from 93 to 85. YMMV....

dim

an old thread, but this video explains cadence very well ....