Solid but no more than that. Plus I was 10 years younger!
What I liked about high cadence was it got me really quickly into zone 2 and I used to ride bunch rides very early or solo v late at night when it was sub zero so really wanted to open my body up early. It also makes sprinting at the end of the ride so much easier, is great for crits and you can end up with gears in reserve while other guys are maxed out.
Try focusing on getting your cadence up (90 is probably the best target initially?) and keeping it constant when you do intervals. Then recovery should just be done in an easier gear rather than from resting on the pedals. Do that enough and youāll be comfortable holding 90 rpm; then you can look to sprint with cadence not gears and practice holding higher numbers for 2-3 minutes at a time. The other big thing is technique - you should try riding with just one leg clipped and really look at making your pedal stroke as āfullā (they used to talk about imagine you are riding squares) as possible.
Enjoy your riding! I need to get back on the bike more!
Neil is very good on this stuff, you may be interested:
TLDL: A good bike fit (esp crank length) is crucial!
And this one is very good with lots of research as well as pro rider expertise:
TLDL: Training for higher cadence will especially improve longer efforts as the ability to maintain cadence after 2mins more indicative of power output than torque.
Making the bottom of the street first. Small wins.
Lots of work needed.
Iām trying to figure out how aligned Garmin is with the current thinking of an 80/20 low / high intensity split. Not convinced they are to be honest so they might get the finger. Weāll see.
Iām not some sort of cadence or cycling guru, but perhaps stick at it and see if you can train yourself to maintain a cadence closer to 100?
Youāll see significant power improvements once you can maintain the higher cadence even if your power drops somewhat in the ST. The ST drop is also potentially influenced by gear ratios especially if the trainer isnāt a road bike.
Nice. What I found at the weekend was if I kept my cadence in the 80ās and used the gears to hit the required power for the intervals or whatever I was being directed to do it worked. Note the trainer was in a set workout and in ERG mode. It was also easier to maintain my heart rate in the required zone that way too.
Iām still learning about this kind training. When I was younger it was all about hours in the saddle.
