I Thought I Knew Everything About Cadence. I Was Wrong.

I didn't think there was much more to

learn about cadence, but actually I was

wrong.

[Music]

Your cadence or your pedaling rate has

long been the topic of debate in

cycling. Some riders spin fast, others

slow. And when I was a pro, I'd say

cadence wasn't something I thought about

all too much. Recently, we've seen some

changes in pro cycling. Riders are

actually eating food in the form of

eating more carbs whilst they're riding.

Cranks are getting shorter and tires are

getting wider. So, is cadence part of

this revolution, if you excuse the pun?

What's the latest advice? And has the

science changed? In this video, I've

done some investigating and the results

surprised me.

[Music]

Okay, so before we dive into this, a

little bit of background on cadence. So

in cycling, cadence is a metric which

measures the amount of times your pedal

completes one full revolution per

minute, and that's otherwise known as

RPM.

Now, there's long been a debate about

what anyone's optimal cadence is, but

when I was racing, it was kind of

considered that if you're able to spin a

higher gear, have a higher cadence, it

was valuable to the point where I

actually remember a really talented

teammate of mine on a development team

when I was younger. He was strong as an

ox, put down massive power, but he loved

to grind his gears really slowly. And I

distinctly remember everyone at the time

thinking he was crazy for pushing such a

low cadence in a race to the point where

my team manager at the time actively

tried to kind of train him away from

this habit. So I think the reason for

this was because at the time many of the

sports best pros were riding with quite

a high cadence. I mean look at Chris

Broom. He was attacking in the tour to

France with a cadence of upwards of 100

RPM. For context, my own caners is

pretty average as most people's is

around 80 to 85 RPM. So, is it a waste

of time to try and emulate riders light

through and try and ride with a higher

cadence? There has been plenty of

research just try to answer just that.

Okay, so this study by Hunts Hess and

Uber in 2024 looked at 14 professional

track cyclists, nine sprinters and five

endurance performing efforts at

different intensity levels up to a

maximal sprint to look at what cadence

was optimal for the riders at each

intensity by measuring power, heart

rate, V2, and blood lactate at each

cadence. The conclusion researchers

found that as intensity increases, your

body naturally prefers faster pedaling.

So as a lower effort, optimal cadence

was around the 66 RPM mark, whilst at V2

max, it rose to 84 RPM. During sprints,

it rose to a super fast 134 revs per

minute. The theory based on this

research is that as intensity rises,

your body starts using more fast twitch

fibers, hence cadence naturally rises.

This is similar to what you see on Zift.

The virtual riding platform has a ton of

riders of varying abilities, racing,

riding, and completing workouts. I

managed to get my hands on average rider

data on the platform. And it's really

interesting because across the board,

cadence rises in more intense categories

of effort. So average cadence for those

free riding 74 RPM. In a group ride, 76.

In a TT, 78. A race it rises further to

79. And with a group workout, it's the

highest average 81 revolutions per

minute. I see a definite trend there of

cadences rising in more intense efforts.

However, this study also in 2024 by

Thomas Wackwitz al in Australia

investigating the influence of cadence

on fatigue during maximal sprint cycling

concluded that fatigue per pedal stroke

doesn't change too much across different

cadences. Researchers measured how much

power dropped per pedal stroke in

15-second sprints in 11 elite sprinters.

Each rider did a test to find their

optimal cadence at max power, then

performed 15-second sprints at this

cadence and 15% above and below it. Due

to results of the study, researchers

thought that because how much power

being dropped each pedal stroke was

about the same whether riders pedal

faster or slower than their optimal

cadence, it could actually be better to

reduce cadence in sprints in order to

limit power loss over the course of the

entire effort.

[Music]

Okay, let's just hold on for a second

and rewind for a moment because I think

it's important to remember cadence's

relationship with power on the bike. So

your power on the bike is equal to your

torque multiplied by your cadence. Or in

other words, your power or your rate of

work done is equal to the force applied

to the pedals multiplied by the

rotational velocity of those pedals. So

if your torque or your cadence increases

whilst the other remains stable, then

your power also increases. But say your

torque remains the same but your cadence

drops, then your power drops. How does

cadence change over the course of a pro

race here? Right now you can see my own

power data from the 2017 World Road Race

Championships. I was actually in the

early breakaway for most of the first

240 km with my effort staying fairly

constant throughout on a lap set course.

On the first ascent of the main 3 1/2 km

climb, I averaged 86 RPM with an average

power of 378 W. Four laps later, 89 RPM,

average power of 431 W. Another 91 RPM.

Average power 479 watt. The next lap, my

final one in the break, 85 RPM, 372 watt

average. Cadence rising as the intensity

wrapped up, but also decreasing ever so

slightly on that final lap before I ran

out of gas, which is something I've

always anecdotally noted. It's harder to

maintain higher cadences when you're

tired. But does that matter? This study

by Peter Leo at Insburgh University

concluded that it potentially does.

Previous studies like this one have

actually highlighted how it's torque,

not cadence that separates different

cyclists. But Leo study consisting of 17

elite male cyclists, all members of UCI

Pro teams 2, tested riders before and

after they had achieved a set amount of

accumulated work, 2 and a half thousand

kjles, basically like a hard ride. The

test included short sprints and longer

effort, 15 seconds, 3 minutes, 12minute

efforts done in controlled conditions.

The results showed that there was a

strong link between cadence and fatigue

with the fatigue from that accumulated

work causing lower cadences and

therefore reduced performance.

Essentially, when tired, it was that

inability to maintain the same cadences

as when fresh that caused the drop in

power, not a drop in torque. Their

findings were consistent with this

study, too, which also found power drops

are more closely related to cadence than

force at the pedals. Their

recommendation, training at higher

cadences could help improve your fatigue

resistance, which is a topic that Sai

delved into on the channel recently, if

it rings a bell. Now, in that video, Sai

spoke to Peter Leo, who is a sports

scientist and high performance coach at

JCO Alulan, whose research I've

mentioned here in this video. So I

caught up with him to get his own take

on what his research conclusions mean

and why he was so interested in

investigating cadence from a performance

standpoint.

It's not a new thing at all as as

fatigue resistance and all. It's maybe a

hot topic, but it's not new at all. But

we we're able now with all the context

and and information to just frame it

better because if you look even if you

take a 5minute effort and you look at

let's let's say you can do 400 watts

over five over 5 minutes but when you

look at the cadence you're operating you

you it could be that you really need to

be exact within two to three RPMs and

exact that cadence and as soon as you

are outside of that range you struggle

to actually produce the power and what I

mean by expanding the spectrum is that

you can express that 400 watts within a

a range of 15 20 RPM and this is where

you you became a lot more versatile.

>> It's really interesting. So basically

just being able to like have that change

in pace of your legs just allows you to

stick with the pace correct way

basically. So this is what we found in

this paper that um pretty much up to one

minute I would say the the force and the

torque is the the really limiting

factor. So it's you can literally say

it's muscle related. The fatigue is

muscular related. As soon as you go

beyond the 1 minute, one and a half

minute close to 2 minute target it

becomes more systemic limited. So it's

it's more about the cardiovascular

system. And what happens here is that

the athlete um non- deliberately choose

to not maximize for the maximum torque.

They actually want to optimize the

torque demand and they fluctuate with

the cadence variations to make sure that

they are in balance with their torque

demand because because

we know that if we not balance the

torque demand, we blow muscularly. And

that's what you want to avoid when you

want to go for a sustained effort that

is longer than 2 minutes. You got to

balance that. And you see what's

happened at the end of a test or when

you completely blow up, you drop with

the cadence and you can no longer

maintain um the the cadence, but also

when cadence drops, your power drops. So

that's kind of in short the summary we

found.

>> Going back to my own data though, so

this is a really rough look at my power

file from Loop Head News Blab. You can

see in the first hour of racing, I

averaged 94 RPM and 377 W.

Then towards the latter stages, and I

remember actually this wasn't a great

day for me in terms of feeling or form,

I averaged 82 RPM and 311 W for an hour

towards the end. Now, this was a race at

the start of the year when I wasn't as

race fit as I would be after gaining a

lot of race days and fitness. And I find

it interesting to look back now now I've

kind of been through this research and

see that difference in cadence. Of

course, it's super rough comparison,

but it is food for thought nonetheless.

Motor pacing like this is a training

tool which many pros use to prepare for

races and I myself really valued it when

I was racing too. But to be honest, I

could never quite put my finger on why

it was so beneficial. Because

essentially, you're doing an effort at

the same power you would solo, but

you're riding much, much faster. You're

having to move your body around on the

bike to stay in the draft, and you have

to adapt your pace quite a lot. And

looking at some of this research, I do

think that is the reason why it's so

important and can be so key because you

really are having to adapt your cadence

a lot more than you would if you were

completing an effort solo. You spin

more. You're forced to ride at a higher

cadence to stay in that draft as you

would in a race. And I think this for me

is why it makes it so different to

getting out on your own. in completing

an effort. There is also research out

there that points to high cadence

training translating to improvements in

leg speed. This study concluded that

high cadence specific training could

shift a rer preferred cadence. The study

put 16 cyclists through six weeks of

training across 18 interval sessions.

One group trained at 20% above their

freely selected cadence assessed from

previous testing and the others trained

at 20% below their freely selected

cadence. After the 6 weeks, all riders

repeated a 15-minute time trial. The

high cadence training did improve their

freely chosen cadence, improving their

gross efficiency, too, whilst the low

cadence group had no change in cadence,

but did achieve greater performance

gains.

But what would Peter Leo advised to add

into training to improve your ability to

pedal both fast and slow? You take a set

of 10 times 3030s and in the on phase

like the 30 seconds on in the first set

you could prescribe the on phase with a

very high cadence and a low torque which

means they almost spinning but they can

never really produce the force. And in

the in the low phase you just go big

gear and slow rolling just slow rolling

big gear in the recovery. And even that

decoupling is tough because you got to

be shifting the whole time and it's it's

actually not so easy. Then in the second

set you could swap it. So you go high

torque, low cadence on the on phase and

uh high cadence um low torque on the off

face. And in the third one you would

just do the athlete whatever they want.

The interesting thing is if they go to

the back to their preferred cadence,

what what I found is with with my

athlete is that they actually are able

to express a lot more than they would

usually do. So there seems like a bit of

a reserve component in there which you

just try to unlock and then your optimum

cadence occurs where you actually are

able to express your peak power output

like your spring power, your highest

spring power. So if you want to go for a

sprint, your optimal cadence is right at

the top of 120 RPM. If you think about

that parabolic shape, everything left to

this curve is more force dominant,

whereas everything right to the curve is

more frequency dominated. So you can

actually walk away as a coach and and

and test your athletes and see where

they actually end up. Are they more on

the foresight? Are they more in the

cadence side? and you have a very good

decision um making in terms of what

training intervention uh you plan with

this athletes. You can actually

individualize your approach.

We definitely saw changes that riders

could just operate at a higher cadence

while they're fatigued. So that's that's

a thing. But also I found it interesting

when I looked at the cadences where the

race was pretty easy, they deliberately

choose to go lower. So they use the

bigger gear and just avoid cadence

revolutions. They sit around 70 RPM just

use a big gear and try to avoid

um much revolutions. However, when they

go more in the tempo p tempo phase, then

they they decide to change and then they

actually lower the gear and bring up the

cadence. up to this point where they

almost go maximal and they're really

high on the RPMs because what we know

from the lab as soon as you decline with

cadence you're pretty close to uh all

out or exhaustion. So it really depends

on on who you're working with. But I

think uh adding some profiling uh to

that and getting a better understanding

of their patterns and what is limiting

them is a first step. And then ideally

you do like a talk cadence assessment

with with like a sprint protocol at

different gears where you can plot your

your optimum cadence and your your shape

and then you actually can see where they

limited. I think that that would be more

like a a more strategic approach. And

again, it's something that I think if

it's it's used already, I think there's

just a time and a place for doing

things. Uh you don't want to do that in

race week because the closer you get to

race, the more they should operate on on

their selective cadence to just make

sure their locomotion and everything is

is efficient. But if you have a bigger

training block and you have not not

discovered that yet, why not be able to

implement some variation, it's not

always about the power outputs, not

always about the the watts you put out,

but rather than what corresponding

cadence and what were the conditions you

put that out. So sometimes if you if

power output stresses you too much,

which some athletes don't prefer in

training, then just go via RP and give

give rather than a a power target, give

them a gear or a cadence target for an

interval.

[Music]

I think the key takeaway for me is that

cadence is definitely something you

should pay attention to more than

potentially I'd have thought of in the

past, particularly if you're someone who

struggles to put down the power in

different scenarios, different

situations, potentially in a group

setting, then being able to to mix your

leg speed up to implement certain

segments into your ride where you do you

do pedal at a rate which is different to

what you're used to can be very

beneficial. It's that cherry on the top

of the cake sort of stuff. It's not

going to kind of make you a world

beater, but at the same time, it could

potentially take your performances up a

notch. And let's face it, it's it's

something that you can do in the riding

you're already completing. It's not

something that has to be done in

addition. It's spending a bit of time on

your usual ride and just mixing things

up, being aware of it. At the same time,

I don't think that cadence is something

that you should really pay note to in

the midst of a kind of race effort or

when you're on a big goal. I think in

that respect, you are just going to

naturally select the leg speed that's

right for you in that situation. But

it's been really interesting to delve

into this topic more and see how those

at the top of the sport are really

paying note to cadence and how it's

potentially having a big impact on their

preparation for some of the sport's

biggest races. Let me know in the

comments section down below if cadence

is something that you really pay

attention to. If it's something that you

put into your riding on the bike and

your training really to hear your

thoughts and especially if it's worked

for you or not. Thanks for watching this

video. I hope you found it useful. See

you in the nice ones.