High Cadence question

Where did you hear that triathletes tend to mash?  I haven't heard that one, nor is it my (admittedly very limited) experience.

To answer your question:  I ride with a fairly high cadence most of the time -- around 100 or above, give or take, in a race.  I ride a slightly lower cadence (maybe 95 or so) during training (most of the time).  On the trainer indoors, it tends to be lower still (90 or so).


Edited by Experior 2009-08-24 7:37 PM

All generalizationa are inaccurate.

I know bicycle racers with low cadences and triathletes who run high. The best hing to do is to ride (lots!) for a while (years!), at various cadences and see what works best for you.

Personally, I rode for years without a cadence sensor, but recently got a good deal on the Garmin device that links up with my FR305. Cadence in training runs around 92-94; the one time I raced with it was a 10-mile ITT where I averaged 100

So what is "high" to you?

My cadence has risen from the 80's to high 90's/low 100's since 05.  It is what it is for me, I love to spin up hills, going into the wind, leading the pack etc.   I wish I had a Powertap to verify where I feel like I make the most power based on interval training & racing.

That's an old one.

Thanks for the response.  I read it (about triathletes mashing)  in a couple off books that a borrowed at the begging of the summer when I first started training. 

From today, riding at a high cadence it did seam to take less effort over all to make the bike go but just was tiring to make my legs go that fast.

I consider a high cadence to be around 100 to 120. 

Edited by orangeace 2009-08-24 7:43 PM

I read something somewhere (BT??) stating basically that high cadence taxes the lungs/heart more and low cadence taxes the legs more. If you max out your cadio you can slow down and regroup. If you max out your muscles you're not getting them back as quickly. Makes sense to me.

On a similar note. I had a few friends who did some time at the Olympic Training Center... and they would all ride with a high cadence in the off-season. As the season approached, they would focus more on leg strength by pushing really big gears up climbs at super low cadences a couple of days a week. Basically their bikes were used for resitance training just like a machine at the gym... higher weight with lower reps. This would build leg strength.
I think we all agree that higher-cadence is better (esp for Tri) but don't neglect leg strength in your training. First place and last place may both be spinning 90 rpms, but the difference is that the winner was spinning the bigger gear.

Is it a total myth, a myth based on some shred of fact, or is it actually true?  Just curious -- I'm relatively new to triathlon and hadn't heard it before.

That has been the case for me.
Since have gotten my cadence sensor, I have been trying to get used to it.
Slowly but surely, but it exposed my weaknesses in cardio...

Trying to go from tris to cycling I think I know what you mean. There is the altering of speed in cycling that makes higher cadence more conducive. Tri folks just tend to find the rhythm and get it on. Well, I think to answer your question I have been focusing on higher cadence this year too with the caveat of doing so in a higher gear. Attention to turning over that one gear higher can result in more power and thus more speed. I may not be putting it as eloquently as the guy I talked to about it (former MI state time trial champion), but it works. He showed a chart to me that showed the incremental power gains by churning one higher gear at the same cadence, say 80, and the same one higher gear at a 90 cadence. The results were nice.
Anyway, I usually do a higher cadence in a lighter gear about 2-3k from T2 to blow the acid out of the legs in prep for the run and it also seems to help.
All this to the point that I know some guys that do like to get into that killer gear and just maintain that lower growling cadence and get good results from that as well. Personal physiology? Just plain personal comfort? Or is one better than the other? I don't know.

IMO, everyone has different levels of leg strength and cardio efficiency. What is right (fastest?) is therefore different from one person to another. I am relatively new to cycling but am progressing while trying new things. I do not have great leg strength (my wife says I have chicken legs) so I focused more on a higher cadence when I began cycling. I found I could cover more ground with a cadence of 95-100 over a given distance.

It is pretty hilly around here so I have been forced to do a fair amount of climbing which I believe has helped me increase my leg strength over the last year. I am experimenting on some of my training rides with going down to a cadence of around 85 and pushing a few more gears. On the flats, I've gone from 19.0 mph to 20.5 mph without going anaerobic. I'm still mixing it up and doing a lot of riding at the higher cadence too trying to find what works best under which circumstances.

We don't all agree. The best bike rider I know has a very low cadence. He's also the best road climber and the best runner (open or tri) that I know as well.

x2.  I've occasionally ridden with (correction:  attempted and failed to hang with) a local guy who appears to ride around 80 or so, which I guess would be considered 'low'.  Now, the fact that I can't hang with him is not saying much, but in fact he is very fast and talented.

I've read some good stuff about cadence -- both empirical and theorical -- in, among other places, the book High-Tech Cycling (edited by Edmund Burke).  Check it out.  I think you'll find that the 'consensus' among those who worry about these things (and are willing to tell the great wide world) is that there is no such thing as an 'ideal' cadence, and that, in fact, there is still a lot to learn about what makes a particular cadence 'good' for one person, and not for another.

I still have my other question, though (really just idle curiosity born of tapering...):  DO triathletes really, generally, have a lower cadence?  Or anyway, what is the source of the claim that they do?

I have pretty strong legs so I tend to be much more comfortable (and at the moment, faster i think, over shorter distances at least) at a lower cadence, however, this also uses a lot more fast twitch muscles and wears me out more over the long haul and so I've really been working on increasing my cadence as well as building speed a little slower than i normally do and it seems to really be working as far as efficiency goes. And the more I work at spinning a higher cadence the easier it is, so I'm going to keep working on gradually increasing it until I reach a point where it feels that is getting too high and then, hopefully, I'll be able to determine my optimum cadence from there.

I have been wondering about this a whole bunch too! Obviously there are generally things that work for different people, but there is some scientific justification to higher cadences no?

Anyway, in my experience with higher cadences my legs turn to jelly REALLY quickly! I have VERY good cardio fitness (resting hr hovers around 35-40) so this baffles me a little. I don't exactly mash when I ride but I do know I keep the pressure on my gears.

Dyou guys have any suggestions for this? Should I just train more at the higher cadences to get used to them?

This is just like anything else... you need to train your muscle memory to ride at higher cadence. The difficult part is to find the sweet spot, where you have the highest power output (over a longer time period... not for 5 min. or something like that...). This means that you need to have high cadence while still being able to put pressure on the pedals. It's really easy to spin at high cadence or keep high pressure on the pedals, but the combination takes time.

As you can see in this thread... it's a controversial topic. But yes, everyone is different. Everyone knows someone who pushes a big gear and is fast, but that isn't a rule. What works for you depends on a lot of variables. Primarily pedaling style and muscle fiber make-up.
Higher cadence works better for most of us because it brings slow-twitch muscles into play... which by design can do work for hours. Pushing a big gear requires fast-twitch fibers to do more of the work... these fibers are not designed to work efficiently for hours on end. Having said that, everyone has a different ratio of slow to fast fibers and a slower cadence does work for some. Heck, I knew a guy who raced RAAM for several years and he rode around in a 63-tooth big ring everywhere.

A triathlete can get away with pushing bigger gears much easier than a bike racer. Triathletes are able to set and maintain a steady tempo. Bike races are completely different than triathlons in that the pace is constantly changing... sometimes violently so. Getting caught in a big gear when an attack goes is the kiss of death. Pedaling higher cadences allows you to respond to speed changes quickly and efficiently. In bike racing terms, the ability to pedal at a high cadence and respond quickly to pace changes is referred to as 'suppleness'.

So for bike racers, it is very important to be able to spin at 80-100 rpms. Triathletes have much more leeway to do whatever works for them individually.


Edited by TaylorB 2009-08-25 12:14 AM

I know that, in my first tri last summer, I stayed in a hard gear the whole way (20km), thinking that it would be faster to pedal slowly in a high gear than to pedal quickly in a low gear.  When I started the run, my calves felt like they were going to explode!

In my tri this year (oly - 40km bike), I focused on a higher cadence and actually increased my average speed over the longer distance.  When I started the run, my quads/hamstrings felt tired, but not sore, and my calves felt fine.  I, personally, have only good things to report about higher-cadence riding. 

I have never heard someone claim that Triathletes pedal lower cadences. However, if you read my post above you can see why Triathletes have more leeway to pedal at lower cadences than does a bike racer. Perhaps that has something to do with the claim.

It came from the roadie crowd. A criticism of triathletes pedeling technique. A lot of triathletes are new to cycylijng, I was, and they just like to make fun of us. Is it true? I suppose someone new to the bike can often choose gearing poorly, my wife did when she started riding. Is high cadence importanrt? No, YOUR cadence is what matters. Whatever works best for you.

What he said. ^^^

The only point that I would concede to the "other" side of the argument is if someone is racing in crtis all the time.  Then having a higher cadence makes accelerations easier (as mentioned in the other post).

But there is NO correct cadence.  There is simply a range that seems more agreeable to work within - which is anywhere between 80 - 110.

IMO, if you're training to be a time trial rider in triathlons you should do whatever makes you go fastest at your goal distance, and still allows you to run well. IMO, the only way to know what that is for you is to test yourself.

For me I know that when I was younger, pushing big gears was faster in an oly (40k bike). My 10k run tri/open ratio was similar to my competition so I assumed my run did not suffer. At that time my run fitness was such that I could afford to push the bike very hard for a 40k and so my goal was to ride very fast bike splits. I knew exactly what cadence strategy was optimal for my speed because I tested myself very often in training on my 40k time trial route. I tested every type of cadence I could come up with such as: constant high average, alternating high/low on a timer, low constant, low w/out-of-saddle to hold gears on small hills, very low alternating in/out of saddle based on timer or cadence drop, etc. I kept incredibly detailed records about the cadence style, time, wind, temp, pre-ride fatigue condition, etc. From this testing, the optimal cadence strategy for me became very obvious.

Now that I'm older, my run fitness is not close to a point where I can push a hard effort on the bike for the distances for which I'm training, so I haven't really done anything other than just riding a comfortable cadence which I think is probably low ~80 on average but I don't know for sure because I don't even have cadence on my computers.

I agree that a person's ideal cadence strategy for a time trial could be totally different than for a road race.

Edited by breckview 2009-08-25 9:31 AM

I have a foot in both camps and let me just say that roadies are elitist snobs, and triathletes never fail to provide plenty of material to laugh at.