Hi Guys, when I trained back in the day, cadence was (almost) all important.- These days it seems hard/expensive to get a bike computer which provides it. Has watching cadence been discredited? or is it just they know people who are serious will pay extra for bluetooth sensors add ons?
I used to have a cheap, wired version, worked great, but nothing like that seems to be available now…
I think it’s still of interest but power is the main metric theses days
The availability and cost of power metres over the past decade has made them much more accessible.
I know people do train with low cadence high power intervals for example but I’m only ever looking at cadence after the activity
Thanks… Power meters are out of budget ( in truth, bluetooth sensors are too). Guess it’s back to doing it by feel.
Cadence seems to have gone in phases, first it was high cadence was the way to go like pro cyclists, then low cadence of which I think Brett Sutton was a proponent. It now seems to have settled on whatever feels best for you as an individual rather than either being right or wrong.
I understood it as try out raising and lowering cadence and test which is most efficient for you.
the most efficient is the one you ride at most of the time…
that’s because he pushes his athletes in to the ground…
There is value to having a cadence at or around 90 rpm…but you have to train at that cadence to extract that value…
I always though pushing hard in a low cadence was meant to be a great way to blow out your knees…
Surely that’s just the one you’ve self selected but not necessarily because it’s most efficient. I find that high cadence stresses CV system more and low cadence lower HR but more muscular strain. Therefore its a case of balancing that and mixing it up rather than there is a perfect number to target.
indeed it can be…
You’ve self selected it because currently it’s the most efficient and it will stay most efficient until you start to train regularly at another cadence…
???
Every bike computer will display cadence so long as you have an appropriate sensor?
I still have it on screen when racing. In a long bike leg I can sometime lose focus on how I’m riding (main focus will be on power numbers) and so having it there is a helpful reminder if I’m at some kind of extreme cadence (at either end).
Back in the day you could get a cheap computer with the sensor included .- Over in tenerife, most of the low end computers do not even advertise cadence as an optional extra.
It’s not something they’ll advertise as it’s such a default feature, there’s literally zero point in mentioning it as it’s not going to be a usp.
You can get pretty cheap sensors now. Even decathlon do their own brand dual ant+/bt sensors for relative peanuts
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/bluetooth-magnet-free-ant-cadence-sensor/_/R-p-312740
That’s pretty much what self selection, of course, it may not be the most efficient based on other knowledge that your body doesn’t really have and may not be most efficient if you changed some things in your training.
Old style computers are freely available very cheaply
What @explorerJC says. Study after study shows that people who cycle a lot self-select their most efficient cadence. What that is varies depending on fatigue, terrain, etc.
Different cadences have slightly different physiological demands buy that is a different question, I think it is anyway.
Thanks… I’d forgotten ali-express.- Delivery isn’t great over here, but that’s worth a try.
It most definitely is still a thing, as is minge
when I used to do shed loads of track racing, my natural riding cadence was 96 but the time I measured of a period of months was a couple of years ago and it was 88.
IME, you always think you’re spinning more than you really are.
Not seen you for a while Cadence. Left many more dirty spines beside the piste verte at Annecy, since then?