Cadence what is this

[skinnydog1973]

Hi im new to all this cycling jargon but what does this actually mean, is this what gear you are in comfortable on the flat, i went out for a ride at the weekend and was in nearly the same gear on the flat and i felt comfortable but any little incline and i was switching through the gears, i hear people going on about cadence but are not 100% sure what they are going on about lol

 

[Phil485]

Basically rpm of your feet.

 

[skinnydog1973]

whats that mean lol

 

[skinnydog1973]

My 3 rides i have done have all been at around 14 mph so would that roughly be my cadence

 

[oldfatfool]

My 3 rides i have done have all been at around 14 mph so would that roughly be my cadence

No, the rpm of your feet~ the number of times your left foot pass through top dead center in one minute. Or the number of times you raise our left knee in one minute if you prefer.

 

[jim55]

yeah its just the turning rate of the pedals ,its best (app)to b in the range of 80-100 ,its not good for the knees to b grinding too hard a gear all the time ,i cant spin my feet as fast as a few here but as long as ure making the bike move and not killing urself id not get too wrapped up in it

 

[Lanzecki]

How fast you are spinning the pedals. Most experienced riders will rotate the pedals somewhere between 60 and 100 RPM (Revs per minute).

IE change the gears to allow you to spin the pedals at this rate. In practical terms spin the pedals at the rate that you feel most happy.

Unless you are after the elusive last 2% extra then forget it and pedal as you feel happy.

*Lanzecki hides his cadence sensor.*

 

[SquareDaff]

How many times in a minute that one of your pedals passes the same point on the bike frame. Simples!!

 

[skinnydog1973]

Thanks for that i will see what i do next time i go out

 

[jim55]

i bought a cateye computer that measured cadence and anytime i checked i was around 80 ,while maybe some would see this as a bit low im a wee bit older and i was happy and this cadence felt about right ,its all about finding a balance between pedalling like a maniac and not covering much ground and in too hard a gear and really slowly turning the pedals ,iv just bought another better comp (garmin )that doesnt have this feature ,that tells you everything ,AFAIK cadence is a lot of rubbish

 

[Hacienda71]

Don't worry too much about cadence if you have just started riding. You will find your own rhythm just by riding the bike. Different pros ride at very different cadences, there is not a right cadence to ride at.

 

[HLaB]

The theory is the higher your cadence, the better you'll climb up slopes (so you need to drop your gears on a climb to maintain it) but if you spin too much you are wasting energy so you need to find what is right for you. 90rpm has been suggested as the optimum but you need to experiment, I know of a lot of good strong riders with a lower cadence.

 

[DTD]

I've just got a cadence sensor with my Garmin – turns out I'm pedalling a lot slower than I thought. In the gym I usually go at 80 to 95 without too much trouble, but on the road I was nearer 60. Think I need to get this up, and try to spend more time in a higher gear to get my average speed up a bit.

 

[malcermie]

Sheldon Brown has a cadence calculator on his site

 

[ColinJ]

Don't worry too much about cadence if you have just started riding. You will find your own rhythm just by riding the bike. Different pros ride at very different cadences, there is not a right cadence to ride at.

True, but ... I see an awful lot of apparently inexperienced cyclists who are either grinding away and wobbling in a gear about double what they can comfortably handle, or spinning at a ludicrous cadence and hardly moving. They often have semi-inflated tyres too. I think they are treating their bikes as singlespeeds because they don't understand the gears. Unfortunately, the gear they are using always seem to be a poor choice, but still - at least they are out cycling! (It is tempting to say something to them, but they would probably tell me to mind my own business, so I don't.)

I saw one rider with his saddle pretty much down on his top tube and riding with his knees stuck way out. I really had to bite my lip not to say something to him. I was trying to work out if there could be some sort of physical problem which meant that the extreme knees-out position made sense, but I couldn't think of one. (Thinking about it now though - maybe the seatpost clamping bolt had snapped, or the seatpost had slipped and he didn't have the right allen keys with him to fix the problem!)