WhyFi

Hmm. I'm exactly the opposite. Sure, at light efforts, under ~75% or so, I'll spin slowly. Otherwise, I find that there's a cumulative muscular fatigue that builds more quickly with higher torque/lower cadence and I find that there's only so much that can be drawn from that well. For shorter rides, this isn't terribly problematic, but longer rides can get pretty hurty. The same power at a higher cadence does drive my HR a little higher, but I find that's something that I can recover from more readily, so no big deal. I'll save high torque efforts, regardless of cadence, for when they're needed.

mizer2167

I'm a newer cyclist, but 120 rpm seems impossibly fast to maintain for a group ride for any significant duration.

I'm a big guy and my "natural cadence" is somewhere in the 85 rpm range, which gives me about 80 average over a 3-4 hour ride when factoring in longer hills (standing = lower) and ~2 minutes of coasting to a stop at lights or intersections per hour. This is for solo efforts. Group rides are a challenge to maintain any set cadence, as it's a lot of surges and coasting/soft pedaling in my experience when you're not at the front.

I've been working on maintaining a higher cadence outdoors closer to 90 rpm average and do find that I am a bit fresher saving the legs more that way at the end. Also need a touch less fueling. Indoors, I find I cycle at higher cadences (more like 90 average) for some reason than outdoors and particularly for large wattage efforts do find it easier to put out more power for longer spinning up to 100 - 105 RPM.

chaadster

I was maintaing very low torque for awhile there due to my painfully swollen, arthritic knees, so without knowing what numbers we’re talking about here, I wouldn’t say it’s exactly opposite. I mean, yeah, you’re absolutely right that HR will recover faster than depleted legs, and that’s my experience as well, but I’m not talking about doing thigh-burning, 2hr rides here, but rather having the confidence that I can drop my cadence to 85rpm for a few minutes to aid HR recovery and still maintain Tempo level power, which is something I’d avoided doing for a long time simply because it hurt my knees. So, no, unless I misunderstood you, I think we’re on the same page that high torque/low cadence is fine for short periods, but doing the same power at higher cadence/lower torque is preferred despite the HR boost because yeah, I gotta save the legs/torque reserves to get up the hills in good enough time to stay in the mix.

WhyFi

Oh, okay - I thought that you were talking about maintaining that lower cadence as a matter of course or at least for extended periods.

LarrySellerz

Riding my 42x18 single speed with the fast group increased my max comfortable cadence by like 25%. It sucked though I even injured my knee on the downhill once just by spinning.

edit: just did a 1 minute cadence drill and got 134 with a stopwatch. Not comfortable though

shelbyfv

Another thought is that since you are on a single speed, lowering your cadence will lower your speed. Lower your speed and you'll drop off the back. Maybe they are trying a different approach to get you to stop crashing their rides.

urbanknight

This could be outdated or even incorrect information, but I read an article about 20 years ago that claimed that as wattage increases, so should cadence.

Carbonfiberboy 

1. It's obvious that the OP does not normally spin 120.
2. Different ride parameters demand different cadences, i.e. cruising in the pack on the flat, pulling the line, climbing at various gradients, descending below your "too fast" speed, etc.
3. There's no right answer. I know local champions who normally use anything between 60 and 100 cadence on the flat.
4. Given #3, there's still no right answer. One can train to establish a different "freely chosen cadence." it's not that hard.
5. When going as hard as one can for say 20', it's easy to tell if one is using one's optimum cadence: If you're running out of legs, too slow. If you're running out of breath, too fast. But see #2.
6. Before posting something like this, know what you're talking about - buy a gadget with a cadence display and note your cadence under varying conditions, see #2..

bahula03

It's like you have a crystal ball this thread is the most classic type on this forum- completely indecipherable between bargain basement trolling and poorly thought-out question.

To the OP- the common sense in this may be elusive, but if you're spinning so fast you injured yourself, you're spinning too fast.

Branko D

That's why you have a normal bike with gears. Getting a knee injury because you try to ride with a fast group with a undergeared single speed is... ill-advised. On a normal bike, the gearing adapts to your legs and not the other way around.
​​​​​
A bike computer with a cadence sensor would tell you what you are actually doing and when you correlate that to how you're feeling and how fast you are going, you can get information you can act on.

My cadence generally seems to be around 85-95 when going hard on the flat or 80-90 when going hard uphill, which is thoroughly conventional. When going easy it's lower.... but I'm not actually thinking about it - it just gets recorded. I'll just more or less subconsciously shift to an easier or harder gear. On some days I feel different and do the efforts at the same power in a different gear at a different cadence 🤷

LarrySellerz

based on strava data I injured myself spinning at around 170-180 RPM which I was completely unfamiliar with.

CliffordK

I'm a masher. VERY slow cadence.

However, if one rides say 10 to 15 MPH, then cadence doesn't matter, and it is quite possible that slow cadence is more efficient.

As one increases the speed to say 25 to 30 MPH (or faster), then one eventually reaches a point where one can no longer produce adequate power at a slow cadence.

I.E. the max power one can sustain is somewhere around 100% of one's body weight as force on the pedals x the RPM (likely less than half the body weight per pedal). For short distances, one can increase power by standing up and pulling up on the handlebars, effectively increasing the downward force, but that is relatively inefficient. Pulling up on the opposite pedal helps some with both more force up as well as down on the cranks.

However, to keep increasing power, one needs to increase cadence... thus spinning.

Dean V

As someone who has done a fair bit of fixed gear riding I would say it isn't possible to keep up with a fast group ride on a 42 x 18.

ls01

the audio seams to be scrambled...

ls01

all of it

Badger6

Strava data? How did strava know how fast you were spinning if you don't have a cadence meter (typically called a cadence sensor)?

Hiro11

The whole "spin to win" thing doesn't work for me personally. I'm 165# and my rides typically come in at around 83 avg cadence. If I try to gear down and run a higher cadence I get exhausted more quickly. I don't have issues with injuries so I'll stick with my grinding ways.

GhostRider62

42 x18 at 120 rpm is only 22 mph. Larry says this is a ride with Cat 1 racers. Something does not add up.

Branko D

I don't think anyone of sound mind would call 83rpm average for a ride to be "grinding". My last weekend ride solo 103km and 781m of climbing, average cadence was 76rpm @ 203W average. I don't have the perception that I was grinding - but some coasting lowers the average, etc, looking where the house I was going to, getting mildly lost in one place, this, that and the other... uninterrupted segments of road I was doing maybe 83 rpm @ 235W.

I don't think 83 rpm is particularly grindy, would be a bit low for me if I was really going all out or near it, but as an average over a ride it looks thoroughly normal.

shelbyfv

Apparently Larry has underestimated either his cadence or the size of his big ring. Fingers and toes usually max out at 20.

WhyFi

It matters quite a bit if you're doing that 10-15mph uphill; it's not low speed that makes cadence less critical, it's low torque.

chaadster

My workout last night made me think of this thread:

10min Warm Up

3x:
5min L4 Threshold (90-100rpm)
5min L2 Recovery (90-100rpm)

2x:
5min L4 Threshold (80-85rpm)
5min L3 Tempo (70-80rpm)

5min Cooldown

A little bit of everything in that ride, yet none of my favorite 85-90rpm range! Those high cadence segments really had me huffin’ and puffin’, but I was getting the HR drop during the recovery segments, so I was able to push through the final 20mins at a low L4 average, which was super-solid.

I’m kind of amazed that I can do low cadence at those power levels today, because two years ago my knee pain was making it so hard, if not impossible (I don’t recall). Being a year off work and off my feet so much really allowed the arthritis which has haunted me for 10 years to settle down, and for my cycling to return to decent form. This past season was my best in four years, and great fun! I guess that’s nothing to do with cadence…sorry.

LarrySellerz

i never was able to finish the ride on the ss and would have to spin much faster than 120 on the downhills. Was worthwhile training though imo, as a result I can do 120 without any bouncing but maybe it's less efficient. Probably a nice tool to have in the chest though

with a high cadence you can still sprint when your legs are dead at the end of a ride

chaadster

Dead legs don’t sprint.

indyfabz

They also don't wear plaid.