Raising cadence

Hi guys. I’m finding that my natural cadence is around 75. If I raise it to 85+ my legs seem to tire. I know that sounds backwards.

I’ve been using traineroad for 5 months now. Is there a disadvantage to settling at this lower cadence. I an coming from long course triathlon point if view. How do yours compare?

IMHO, depends on your goals. If you plan to race, I think you would need to up the cadence and be comfortable to average 85-95, with well controlled bumps into 100+.
At low cadence you rely on high torque and it is ok for steady flat efforts, however in rapidly changing pace in the race, low cadence is too slow to react, this can drain the legs quick.
I had to specifically train for higher cadence to get comfortable at it, it means doing workouts at higher rpm than comfortable.

I’m sure more advice is coming your way!

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Cadence is personal/specific. What feels good for me, might be different for you.

If you simply want to learn how to spin faster in all conditions, buy a cheap set of rollers and learn to ride them. I think I generally spin in the low-90’s for ‘noodling around’ and high-90’s ‘when it matters’. Of course getting >100 ‘when it really matters’.

I’m too old to hit the 130’s or something nuts, but I do have consistency in the 90’s which I attribute to working on rollers.

Cadence is personal/specific but it’s possible, and it’s better, to raise it if you plan to race GF.
in my experience, however, it takes time: you can not raise the cadence of 10-15RPM in a few months and, if you do, you’ll probably have problems
it’s a much longer process with a gain of a few average RPMs each year

I’m a mountain biker and when I started TR over a year ago my natural cadence was around 80. After loosely following the workout text suggestions for a year my natural cadence is more around 90-92 now and I’m happy spinning at 110, even 120. Even managed a new max of +180 :smile:

I find the ~95 mark myself that fine balance between “legs are light” and “breathing only slightly faster.
75 does seem a bit low but training to raise it to 85 seems doable within whatever block you’re doing

Thanks for the advice guys! Its definitely something I’ll actively try to improve going forward :+1:

I just recently raised my cadence from low 80’s to high 90’s. I was a mountain biker also and kind of a pedal stomper and resisted high cadence because it feared my legs would tire or my heart rate would spike. A couple of months in ERG mode honing that faster cadence and I wouldn’t look back. I often ride over 100 during the trainer road intervals and feel like lower cadences are harder to maintain now.

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That’s reassuring, I’ll concentrate on gradually upping the cadence… Thanks mate

When I first started doing proper training and not just outdoor riding my cadence was pretty low, ~75 indoors and a bit lower on outdoor rides. Over the last year or so I have slowly increased it to around 90-100 and it feels so much better, it takes a bit to get used to but my legs feel much more rested now than they would at a lower cadence.

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