Cadence on indoor trainer
 

What do you guys like to keep your Cadence around when you on the trainer/rollers indoors. I'd like to know a base to start at so I'm making a worth while training schedule. Thanks for your time.

Same as when I ride on the road. Ranges from 85-110, depending on what I'm doing.


"Base" is right around 90.


I think cadence varies greatly between people. Some are spinners, some are mashers.

Kind of a fun thing is that one can experiment with gear and cadence on rollers or trainer without the bother of having to consider where one is riding. Usually I pedal my normal outdoor cadence, but I'll also do long drills at 70 cadence and biggest gear and sometimes I'll do long stints at 120 cadence in little bitty gears. Sometimes I'll do one-legged pedaling, which is almost impossible to do interestingly outdoors. A feature (not a bug) of trainers and rollers is that there are no descents and no need to slow or stop for traffic or traffic controls. I save the weird stuff for the rollers and do normal stuff outdoors.

Yes, a quality training regimen involves pedaling at various cadences across a wide range, say from 70rpm to 110rpm.

Doing so not only builds specific strengths and abilities in your body, it helps to break up the monotony of stationary work.

I'd suggest that, any time you jump on the rollers or the turbo, you do so with a ride plan, and set blocks of time where you'll be pedaling in a given cadence range, at a given intensity, for some given time. For example, you may do 10mins medium intensity at 85-90rpm, followed by 1min max intensity at 95-100rpm, followed by 4mins medium intensity 85-90rpm and then go into 5mins high intensity at 75-80rpm followed by 5mins easy 85-90rpm, repeating the routine for a nice 40mins of workout bookended by a 10 min warmup and 5min cooldown.

There are tons of workout plans available in books and online, or in various phone and computer apps, so there's no need to make it up on your own. There are even YouTube videos you can follow as you ride as well.

Lots of options, but the point is you should be training at a variety of pedaling speeds.

It's not the same as the road anyway, and it's boring. Do whatever cadence you would like to have all the time, and whatever else you can do to stay awake.