mytrilife

Cycling cadence.. what is most efficient?

I've had many discussion (arguments?) over the years about which is the best cadence.
There is the "spin like Lance" and the "grind it like Bjorn" crowd, and those in between. It turns out we're all right.... sort of. Ric Stern who writes training articles for cyclingnews.com wrote this as part of a response to a question about one of his articles:

At a given workload, different cadences will produce different efficiencies, such that efficiency increases at lower than optimal cadences. as the workload increases the most efficient cadence rises

It reminded me of another article written on the subject, and I was able to find it.... Dr. Stephen Cheung, Ph. D, writes:

optimal cadence increases with increasing power outputs.

there seems to be a continuing upward trend of optimal cadence with increasing power outputs, and thus Lance’s incredibly high power outputs may also explain his higher cadence

So, what is the point?
- Cadence is a function of power. Not vice-versa.
- for long endurance races such as Ironman, optimal cadence is likely much lower than the optimal cadence, FOR THE SAME ATHLETE racing an Olympic distance, because the % of power output is different.

My n=1 observations over my short racing career seem to reinforce these points. I race Ironman distance in the low 80's, half-IM in the high-80's/low 90'
s, and Olympic distance in the mid-90's. I didn't force these cadences either, I race without a bike computer. But, I have counted my cadence during a few races out of curiosity.

I don't have a reference, but it has been concluded through scientific studies that our most efficient cadence is self-selected. (find me the article(s) and I'll post it here). Therefore, trying to hold a certain cadence in a race by watching your cadence monitor computer is detrimental to performance. BTW... this also applies to running cadence, so telling someone to "pick up thier cadence" is really doing them no good.

posted by Greg @ 10/02/2006