nothing seems to cause quite so much of
a debate in the world of cycling there's
discussions around pedaling technique
and Cadence people seem you split into
one of two camps do you spin to win or
do you do whatever comes naturally the
question is what should you do though
can you improve your Cadence firstly
though let it be so that there is no
ideal pedaling style or Cadence in fact
you only have to look through the great
champions of the sport past and present
to reveal quite a big spectrum and if we
take a modern day as an example two of
the best current Grand Tour Riders narra
canana and Chris R they are complete
opposite ends of the Cadence
range broadly speaking then it seems
like Cadence is linked to two factors
firstly there's power output whereby the
fastest and most powerful Riders tend to
Pedal with faster cadences and we think
it's about an increase of 6 RPM per 100
Wat
but and this is really important the
Cadence is as a result of the power and
not the other way around and then
there's the velocity of the bike itself
so what you tend to find that when
you're riding fast on a flat Road almost
like we're doing at the moment you
naturally tend to have a higher Cadence
somewhere around about 95 RPM but then
if you get up to a steep climb your
natural preferred Cadence will drop
significantly something like 70 to 75
RPM even if you've got adequate gears to
Pedal faster and this is probably down
to the lower inertia experienced on
steep Clines which feels a different
Force pattern through the pedal stroke
all of this goes to say then that you
don't have an Optimum Cadence you've got
many Optimum cadences for different
roads conditions and power
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outputs we haven't finished there yet
though either Rider size is important
because big legs require more power to
move than small smaller legs and then of
course there's your ratio of fast and
slow twitch muscle fibers there's your
age that comes into consideration and
then even whether you're slipstreaming
or riding in the wind importantly what
current research seems to point to is
that people normally ride at their
energetically optimal Cadence when
they're towards their maximum power
output however they tend to ride at too
high Cadence when they're riding at
lower intensities although what this
doesn't take into consideration is your
muscular system you see riding at lower
cadences require higher forces and that
can lead to muscle fatigue it really is
a can of worms then but if we come back
to our original question can you change
your Cadence to ultimately make you
faster well given that it is such a
complex picture we decided to consult
Professor Lou passfield is's one of the
former Sports scientists in cycling and
endurance por and he said that yes
Cadence is a difficult topic which is
something of a relief and that see one
of the reasons for that is that no one
even knows what optimal really means
here because is it the rate of perceived
exertion so how hard it feels like
you're actually trying or is it a
physiological marker like your oxygen
uptake because actually amusingly
perhaps the two don't match up when you
test them in a lab like Dan and I found
out actually a couple years ago we did
indeed and something else that Lou said
is that actually if you're just getting
into the sport of cycling the often
quoted golden Cadence of about 90 RPM
probably is fairly spot on although we
should qualify this given what we've
already learned in this video and say
that's when you're riding hard on a flat
Road it probably is slightly too quick
for when you're going uphill however you
are quickly going to find out what is
achievable for you yeah now one thing
that is absolutely undeniable amongst
all of this though is that we could all
use Cadence to actually increase
training effect so for most of us our
training is probably aimed to allow us
to cope with a whole range of conditions
better on the bike so being able to
climb better or time trial better or
Sprint better and actually Cadence can
help us do that so coming up are three
training sessions that use Cadence to
make us
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faster low Cadence drills are designed
to build muscle Endurance by asking your
legs to generate more Force at a lower
Cadence so for this one getting a gear
which enables you have a Cadence of
between 50 and 60 RPMs whil it's that
sweet spot intensity so a good solid
Tempo and do 5 minutes of easy riding in
between each one ideally you should do
these on a
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climb another really effective type of
cadence drill is standing star efforts
so these are used by loads of different
types of competitive cyclists from track
sprinters right through to skinny little
climbers and it's effectively like
weight training on the bike so it will
help you recruit muscle fibers so making
more of the muscle that you already have
but then ultimately long term will help
you develop lean tissue as well to do it
come from a standing start in a really
big gear and then accelerate as hard as
you
can you probably only need to do about
10 of these with full recovery to make a
set
and finally we have high Cadence drills
although we should say that pfiel says
there's no scientific basis for these so
they're purely anecdotal but the theory
is sound coordinating more effective
movement now for these ones again you
want to do intervals of 5 minutes in
duration this time choose a very easy
gear which is going to allow you to spin
at 120 to 130 RPM now if you're not used
to these sorts of cadences they are
still going to feel quite fatiguing
despite the relatively low
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intensity well hopefully this pragmatic
approach to Cadence will serve you well
it certainly has done for many of the
world's top riders for many years make
sure you let us know how you get on with
our suggested Cadence drills but before
you head out on your bike you might want
to watch the next couple of videos up in
the top Corner over there is the video
we talked about a little bit earlier on
in this video where we went into the
laboratory and gcn does science on
Cadence and also in the bottom corner
there is how to Pedal like a pro before
going to either of those though do make
sure you subscribe to gcn to do that
just click on the globe where's that
going to be then no idea