aka Tom Reingold
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: New York, NY, and High Falls, NY, USA
Posts: 40,583
Bikes: 1962 Rudge Sports, 1971 Raleigh Super Course, 1971 Raleigh Pro Track, 1974 Raleigh International, 1975 Viscount Fixie, 1982 McLean, 1996 Lemond (Ti), 2002 Burley Zydeco tandem
Mentioned: 513 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 7391 Post(s)
I'm of the opinion that cadence doesn't matter much. High cadence was stressed in the early 80s, but I think it was overblown. Sure if you want to be as fast as you can be, you need the ability, and training at high cadence can be useful. For every day riding, I'm not convinced. And hill climbing at low cadence is fine, at least for most people. When I stand to pedal, my legs are not so bent.
I occasionally ride a fixed gear bike with about a 72 inch gear. When I get up to 20 or 25 mph (downhill), my legs go pretty fast, confirming I can still do it. I guess that's good.
Sometimes when I ride, I worry (unnecessarily) that I'm pedaling too slowly. I look down and estimate; I realize I'm actually going about 90 rpm, so I'm good.