If you can’t sustain 90RPM at a reasonable level of exertion, then you should consider doing some cadence drills. Higher cadence will help increase pedaling efficiency. There’s also torque efficiency and pedaling smoothness in Golden Cheetah.
Personally, my best power output came around 100-110RPM. My normal self-selected cadence is around 80RPM. When climbing, and especially heading into the strong winds, I have an easier time sustaining my power output at higher cadences, i.e. 90-100RPM. Inversely, when riding downwind, it seems much easier to sustain the same power output. I’m guessing this has everything to do with pedaling efficiency, but I haven’t analyzed it thoroughly.
If I’m trying to cultivate fitness, my normal route is around an airport which has a lengthy upwind and downwind leg, which is where I’ve observed this.
So to repeat in my own words, power is basically what is available to send to the wheels. You can train to increase this max value and also to be able to sustain higher values for greater lengths of time.
Cadence is mainly related to how efficiently you can then deliver this power. But training for cadence is a separate endeavor and target value can be mostly individual?
I’m definitely on the spectrum of “enthusiast” defined above. I think I always knew this, but the reality is finally setting in for me.
I spent a ton of time (and kms) on the bike over the last 2 seasons and never really got much faster. I don’t mind being in the last group to finish a brevet, and I knew I wasn’t training at all for speed, just for endurance.
But mentally I think I was klinging to the idea that I was riding a heavy bike with big tires…and then I tried out a Kickr with Zwift and people were still blowing by me the same way. Seeing the power numbers and cadence numbers are starting to put the pieces together for me.
As a first step I installed a cadence meter on my bike for outdoor rides. Think I’m going to let it collect data for awhile then make a plan
Yeah, it’s fully trainable for sure. I used to be like a Triathlete with a pretty lazy cadence but once I started on track I adapted and Ive not forgotten how to spin a lot faster. I feel like it’s more efficient.
During my indoor workouts, I switch up my cadence every 5 min and stand for 1 min every 10-15 min. Helps me break up the routine. I usually end up with ~88-89 rpm avg. I find that indoors, my natural cadence lowers (when I’m putting out the wattz) a bit vs outdoors.
This is also true for me for any effort under 5 minutes. However, I can’t really say universally that this is my best rpm. It literally only works for me in situations above 275-300w. I simply can’t sustain those power numbers at low rpm for more than a 30 seconds or so because the high torque.
Conversely, I can’t spin 110 rpm endlessly at low watts. It feels wrong.
For me, cadence is very relative up the type of effort you’re doing. My predisposition to high cadence at high intensity efforts is also why I’m a shit climber on the steep stuff. My ftp when I’m fit might be 255w, but I have to do that effort at above 85 rpm. On a climb where I’m geared out and stuck in low rpm to stay under threshold, I’d struggle to put out more than 220w.
With the last few years of mtbing, I’ve had to make an effort to get used to a wider range of cadence due to the range of terrain available. Can’t just park it at 75 rpm up a trail climb.
Yeah. MTB is funny. It’s so variable. I remember hearing about the study that analysed the efficiency of cycling codes and they said that mtbers had the best technique. I have no idea how they measured it. For me my best sustainable TT watts over half an hour at 4.3 w/kg came at 99 rpm, but on the track I am guessing it was a lot higher (rpm). On the long climbs I can get high watts at low cadence, but then I did used to purposely train that way at times too.
usually somewhere in the 4.0-4.1 w/kg. however, all my ftp tests have been on left-only meters, so i think they’re biased by a couple percent. left leg is a little better due to a hip imbalance.
now that i live at 9,000 ft (2700m for the non americans), it’s best to just never worry about ftp ever again. i track tss and take rest weeks, but i’m never gonna hit another power PR up here. i’m content to keep my CTL pretty low also - now that i’m up here 7 days a week, just cant recover from much.
i absolutely believe that. people who think they have a good pedal stroke because they ride a fixed gear are fooling themselves. having no flywheel actually encourages bad pedal stroke because you can put quite a bit of negative into the rotation without much impact.
i assume they measured the torque at a high number of points throughout the pedal rotations and found that mtbers had the most smooth torque input. as a rookie mtber, i remember how easy it was to get stuck at 12 and 6 on the mtb. now i do technical climbs on flat pedals on a big travel bike and sure, i get stuck here and there, but i can climb things i thought were impossible when i was starting out.
CRUSHED my PR this morning. My last best average was 30.1kph and I was at least 2 minutes faster than the fastest I can remember. I felt really good up the first hill so I committed to pushing hard and stayed in the drops. Then I got lucky with the lights, zero stops.
It’ll be a minute before everything lines up like this again.
I’m keen to check it out, though I imagine it won’t matter as it’s going to take probably another year of consistent effort for my fitness not to be shit, even for my age.
In other news, @Itsmattbb pointed out this amazing podcast to me:
These guys are way more qualified than I am to tell you that HIIT is bullshit, anaerobic training isn’t all that useful, and you should focus above all else on increasing your FTP.
def not training, but def getting more fit this year due to this stupid work “climb 100k in 8 weeks” challenge.
i’m a bit behind because i took a rest week, but i’m at 65,000 ft uphill since june 20th.
i have 17 days left to complete the final 35,000 ft.
this was still a terrible idea, but, i’m setting lots of strava PRs and getting top 10s on climb.
i also have lost like 10lbs since may just burning more calories more than i can possibly eat in snacks.
I can go out and get 1kft in a quick 45 minute ride, but there’s no way I have time or fitness for 100kft in 56 days. Kudos!
Tonight I didn’t even make 900ft
1000 ft is tough for me in 45 minutes. I have 1 ride option that I can do this and I don’t have the mental stamina to repeat that hill to get enough climbing in for the day.
Its actually much harder to get this gain in living up high… My biggest climbs nearby are the 800 ft ski road, 1400 ft dirt road that is a mellow grade (but too rough on the way down for a road bike, so I have to take the mtb), but takes almost 6 miles to get that vert, then the 1600 ft jeep road climb that takes an hour and is brutally hard due to loose rocks. Any kind of loop I could do on the mtb is 2 hours plus to get my daily 1785 ft. On the road bike, I can do out and backs only.
Basically, it’d be easier in Boulder where there are multiple road climb options that I could rotate and get this gain in much less time . But the one plus side of doing this in quarantine is that I can sleep 9.5 hours a night to get enough recovery since I don’t have to drive in to work.
I don’t think I have any lunchtime hour rides that net less than 380 to 560 metres, 1246 to 1837 feet. It’s the nature of our topography. Lots of short steep hills, but no really long gradual ones. I seem to average about 430 metres. We are running a work “Olympics” currently. I’m supposed to be doing a 38km TT in my lunch hour, but I’m inclined to just take a nap on the couch…
post glacial topography means that I have a choice between short and punchy 2-300 ft climbs or long and boring 2-300 ft climbs. The only good part is that I can head out my front door and there’s a hill there.
