Every time I talk about using fixed gear track bikes for training purposes (and why it’s pointless,) I am met with more and more arguments why you should use a fixed gear for training. Which means I have more and more myths to dispel!

But before I get deep into specifics, let me mention a very important training principle for all cyclists. That would be specificity. The gist of this principle is that your training conditions need to mirror your racing conditions (as closely as possible.)

For example, if you are a mountain bike racer, it would be good to spend lots of time on your mountain bike, and do lots of hill intervals. If you’re a time trial specialist, you should be spending time in the tucked position on your TT bike, at a steady race pace. And if you race on the track, you should do the majority of your training on a fixed gear, on the track.

(If you don’t believe me about specificity, just ask Joe Friel, author of The Cyclist’s Training Bible.)

But for one reason or another, many advocate using a fixed gear for road training.

I already debunked the myth about fixed gear bikes improving pedal stroke, but everyone still thinks they are better for cadence and power development. Why? Because on the downhills, you have to pedal at a fast cadence. And on the climbs, you have to use lots of power to turn the gear.

So I will go ahead and play along with this argument. I do agree to the facts – that you usually have to power up hills at a low cadence and spin down hills at a high cadence.

But here’s the thing. With the fixed gear, you need a fairly steep hill to challenge yourself into using more power. Same with the downhill – it has to be a real downhill that’s steep enough to get you spinning extra fast.

Well guess what – common sense says that if you’re on a geared bike, you can always get into a gear like that, no matter how flat or steep the terrain. You just have to shift differently than usual – into a bigger gear for climbs, and a smaller gear for descents.

So I can go ride a regular road bike and just shift into a bigger gear than I’d normally use for the hill in question. And I can keep the gear fairly low for the downhill, requiring me to spin the pedals at 140rpm.

Why buy a fixed gear when you can train like that on a geared bike? I don’t know.

The only thing left is that fixed gear forces you to pedal while geared bikes let you coast. But that is simply a replacement for motivation. If you’re motivated to train, you don’t need a fixed gear to force yourself to pedal.

If you don’t have the motivation to pedal your bicycle, then you need to rethink your racing goals. You have bigger problems than the type of bike you’re riding!

Now that that’s over, let’s go back to specificity. Let’s say you’re a road racer. You need to be highly skilled at riding your road bike at whatever cadence and pace the race course and other racers dictate. Chances are, the front racers won’t be doing 40rpm up the climbs and 140rpm on the descents. They also won’t be pedaling through the sharp bends on the downhills. So why would you purposefully do something completely different in training?

I really don’t care if you want to have some fun riding a singlespeed to reduce boredom. Sure, by all means, ride one. Or if you want to ride a fixed gear for your road training, I don’t mind. But if you think you are somehow getting better training than if you rode the geared bike you race on, I urge you to re-evaluate what you are doing.

Photo credit: gintacat

Let’s look at cadence when it comes to mountain biking…

Speaking of cadence, which one is efficient in mt biking – maintaining 90 rpm, or high torque and less rpm?

Thanks,
Mountain Matt

Hi Matt,

The short answer is, “it depends.”

As discussed in my proper cadence article, the proper cadence differs between riders, even when road biking. However, it is generally accepted that maintaining a steady cadence of 90rpm is most efficient on the road.

At the other end of the spectrum (mountain biking,) there are many situations that call for different cadences. When mountain biking, you can disregard virtually everything I said about proper cadence for road biking!

In general, a slower cadence in a higher gear will offer more stability when negotiated rough, technical terrain. Having that extra resistance will make it much easier to go up, over, and/or around obstacles without losing momentum.

Let’s say you’re on very rutted terrain. You want a real big gear and slow cadence to put your weight on your feet, easing the pain on your butt. (The harder of a gear you’re pushing, the less your butt rests on the saddle.)

For technical hill climbs, you definitely want more torque and a lower cadence. This allows you to push yourself over obstacles and begin pedaling again, without spinning out.

If you’re cruising down dirt roads, go ahead and spin 90 rpm if you want to relax. But even then, I don’t always spin that fast. It’s partly due to the longer crank arms on my mountain bike, but partly because the high cadence just doesn’t feel right on the rough stuff. (Even on a regular dirt road, I like that torque.)

However, one thing I’ve heard from some of the local pros that also ride singlespeeds, is that they have successfully used a “singlespeed-esque strategy” while racing on geared bikes. (If you’ve never been on a singlespeed, it typically works like this: you stand and grind on the hills, then spin real easy on the flats.)

So using this strategy on a geared bike means you get in a fairly big gear and push really hard on the climbs. Then when you’re on the flats, you spin relatively easily to recover. The goal is to save your energy for the tough stuff, while conserving energy where extra effort doesn’t yield that much difference in speed (i.e. going hard on a hill can really put a gap on your competition, while spinning moderately on the flats is almost as fast as pushing really hard on the flats.)

What it boils down is that, in most cases, you’ll have a better experience if you push a bigger gear on your mountain bike instead of spinning at 90rpm.

A smooth, fluid pedal stroke combined with a good cadence is an integral part of riding fast and efficiently (and therefore winning races.)

Cadence can be described simply as your pedaling speed. It is measured in Revolutions Per Minute, or RPM. This is the number of times your legs complete full circles in 60 seconds of riding.

(Don’t know your cadence? Here is how to count your cadence.)

Cadence varies between riders and even the same rider will vary their cadence in a given situation, but most elite riders use a fast cadence. There is no “one size fits all” perfect cadence, but we’ll look at the differences between the high and low cadences in this article.

For the purposes of this article, I will use the following measurements to describe cadence:

• Very slow: 50-70 RPM
• Slow: 70-80 RPM
• Moderate: 80-90 RPM
• Fast: 90-100 RPM
• Very Fast: 100-110 RPM
• Extremely Fast: 110+ RPM

To simplify even further, you can consider anything under 90 RPM to be a low cadence, and 90+ RPM would be a high cadence.

High vs Low Cadence: The Pros and Cons

Let’s start by looking at the pros and cons of each cadence…

If you are riding with a high cadence in an easy gear, pedaling is going to tax your cardiovascular and respiratory systems. If you have a strong heart and lungs, you can probably hold a fast cadence for a long period of time. Because of the easy gear, it will produce less strain on your muscles.

Low cadence riding in a hard gear taxes your skeletal muscles, specifically your quads. Since you’re using a big gear, you have to apply lots of force to turn it. If your legs are very big and powerful, this may work well for you.

Turning the big gear slowly has less effect on your heart and lungs, so you’re less likely to be gasping for air or have a skyrocketing heart rate.

However, there is an edge towards the higher cadence riding. Your heart and lungs can take repeated punishment for long periods of time (and they recovery quickly after hard efforts,) while your muscles will fatigue relatively quickly.

A high cadence also places less stress and torque on your knees. So if you have bad knees, you’re usually better off spinning faster, in a low gear.

There is also a tactical advantage to using a high cadence. Spinning fast in a low gear allows for faster accelerations, because you can bump up your cadence even more to increase your speed. If you need to shift gears, that’s also easier, since the drivetrain in under less stress.

If you’re pushing a big gear and the pace changes, you’re in trouble. You won’t be able to change cadence or shift gears quickly, so you may get dropped.

Cadence in the Pro Peloton

The most noteworthy example of cadence in the pro peloton is the rivalry between Jan Ullrich and Lance Armstrong in the mountain stages of the Tour de France. When Lance came back to win the Tour, he was riding at a very fast cadence, usually 110rpm or more. Ullrich, on the other hand, was grinding out the big gears at a cadence closer to 65-70rpm.

While both riders were very talented, Lance and his higher cadence always seemed to get the better of Ullrich (and everyone else in the race, for that matter.) But don’t forget, Jan Ullrich won the Tour back in 1997, so it’s entirely possible that some future TdF champs will be turning the pedals slowly.

I’d put my money on a higher-cadence rider, though. There has been at least one study of professional cyclists (from the European Journal of Applied Physiology) that showed a link between high cadence riding and better overall performance. The reasoning is that the less tension on the muscles, the longer you have before fatigue sets in.

Since I don’t have cadence data for all pro riders, I can’t specify what cadence is the most popular, but I’d venture a guess that most riders fall in the 80-100rpm range, depending on the situation. Especially today, with studies and anecdotal evidence supporting a high cadence for performance riding.

Finding Your Most Efficient Cadence

Despite the edge in favor of high cadences, the best thing to do is perform some tests to determine your optimal cadence.

Time Trial Cadence Test

The easiest way to determine your optimal cadence is by performing a time trial multiple times, using a different cadence each time.

First, determine a course on local roads that takes about 10 minutes to complete. This route will be the same for each time trial.

Next, perform a time trial on the course at a cadence of 80rpm. When finished, record your time and rating of perceived exertion (RPE.)

Ride easy for 15-20 minutes, then perform another time trial, this time using a cadence around 95-100rpm. When finished, record your time and RPE.

A couple days later, perform the same test again, but do the first time trial at a high cadence and the second time trial at a low cadence.

Now you can compare the data. Whichever cadence produced faster times and lower RPE values is probably your ideal cadence.

For example, if the slow cadence has your legs burning and your average speed slowing down, while you feel great at a high cadence and cut a minute off your slow cadence trials, it’s a safe bet that you should be riding at a high cadence.

You could perform this test multiple times for a better sample size, but in general, you’re just comparing how fast you could ride a course at different cadences. If you want to get specific, you could try doing time trials at 80rpm, 85rpm, 90rpm, 95rpm, 100rpm, 110rpm, etc.

If you ride comfortably somewhere in the range of 85-110rpm, that’s probably good.

Hill Climb Cadence Test

Find a hill climb that takes about 3 minutes to complete. (You’ll be doing more time trials, but you won’t need to record data.)

On trial one, ride the first 2/3 of the hill in a low gear and a cadence around 95rpm. For the last 1/3, use whatever gear and cadence you want.

On trial two, ride the first 2/3 of the hill in a big gear and a cadence around 80rpm. For the last 1/3, use whatever gear and cadence you want.

To get the results, just remember what you did on the last 1/3 of the hill in each test.

For the last 1/3 of the hill, you probably wanted to recover, and you would have switched to whatever cadence is more comfortable for you. If you were staying in and switching to a lower gear and high cadence, then high cadence riding is for you. If you couldn’t wait to shift to a harder gear and slow your cadence down so you could catch your breath, then you may be best suited for big gear and low cadence riding.

Cadence Summary

There are pros and cons to high and low cadences. You should test out a variety of cadences and ride what is most comfortable and fastest for you.

The ‘right’ cadence is different for everyone, and you’ll probably vary your cadence depending on the terrain, so you don’t have to freak out about getting the exact cadence. All I can say is that your ideal cadence will fall somewhere between “holy sh*t my legs are on fire!” and “I… can’t… breathe!”

If you can’t seem to pick a favorite RPM within that range, err on the high cadence side, just below the point where you can’t breathe steadily.

Photo credits: br1dotcom | Rene S

One fundamental aspect of cycling is pedaling. But there’s more than pedaling than just pedaling – you need to pedal correctly, at the correct speed. That speed is known as your pedal cadence, and it’s measured in RPM – revolutions per minute.

In other words, cadence is how many pedal strokes you complete in one minute. It has been all the rage since Lance Armstrong won seven Tours de France with his signature fast cadence of 90-120 rpm. (Beating rivals such as Jan Ullrich, who pushed big gears with a slower cadence.)

You don’t need to pedal at 120 rpm to win races, but you should experiment with different cadences to see what is right for you.

To do that, you’ll need to count your cadence so you know what it is! The most common method is to count your pedal strokes while timing yourself with a stop watch (which is built into most cyclocomputers.)

Counting Your Cadence

Here’s how to do it:

Part #1: Counting Your Foot

The basis of counting your cadence is counting each pedal stroke. Since both feet need to complete one revolution to equal one full pedal stroke, you will only count one foot.

What I do is count each time my left foot hits the 6 o’clock part of the stroke.

Part #2: Timing

You will be counting your cadence for a short period of time. I usually do 15 or 20 seconds.

So I watch my stopwatch until it hits a good time such as 5:15. Then I count each time my left foot goes around, stopping once the watch says 5:30.

Part #3: Calculating Your Cadence

Now you should have two numbers. One is the number of seconds, and the other is the number of strokes you completed in that time period.

The goal is to calculate how many strokes you would have completed in 60 seconds. So if you counted for 15 seconds, you’ll multiply that number by 4 (since 15 seconds times 4 equals 60 seconds.) If you counted for 20 seconds, multiply strokes by 3.

That will give you your cadence, or RPM.

Example:

Let’s say you did 20 pedal strokes in 15 seconds. You’ll multiply 20×4 to get your cadence. That gives you a cadence of 80 rpm.

You could also count for 20 seconds. Let’s say you did 30 pedal strokes in 20 seconds. You multiply 30×3 for your cadence, which turns out to be 90 rpm.

That test is fairly accurate, but not perfect. It’s good enough for testing purposes, but sometimes you will consciously pedal faster while you’re counting, but then slow down afterward.

A Cyclocomputer with Cadence Option

The other way to measure your cadence, which is much easier, is to get a cyclocomputer that measures cadence. The computer does all the work for you!

With this option, you have a magnet on your crankarm and a sensor on your chainstay. The computer then counts your cadence for you in real time, just like it does with wheel speed.

It’s easy, but it does cost a little bit more, and it also requires another magnet attached to your bike.

If that’s what you want, here are two computers with cadence that are worth checking out:

I used the Cat Eye Strada on a friend’s bike, and it was neat to watch the cadence. It really opened my eyes, because my cadence would regularly drop down to 80-85 even when I thought I was pedaling 90-95 rpm!

If you want to avoid wires, you might look at the VDO C3 DS Wireless Cyclocomputer w/ Wireless Cadence.

Or… go all out with the Garmin Edge 305 (you can add cadence as an optional kit.)

Whatever way you go, the important point is to get an idea of what your cadence is!

Photo credit: colinedwards99