Velocity Cycling Indoors

Cycling Cadence: What is it & How to Improve Yours

If you’ve ever watched elite cyclists pedal, you’ve likely noticed how they glide along the road. Quickly, smoothly, efficiently. Their legs move in steady loops whether they’re going up a steep hill or riding on flat terrain. And a huge part of that ease is cadence.

Cadence is the rate at which a cyclist pedals. It’s the number of pedal revolutions per minute (RPMs). If you increase and train your cadence, you’ll improve your cycling efficiency, allowing you to pedal for longer, faster.

Why?

When you pedal faster, you put less strain (i.e. force) on your muscles with each stroke. You ride in a lower gear, and as a result, use your slow-twitch muscles. These muscles burn fat for fuel, are resistant to fatigue, and recover quickly when allowed to rest. Also, studies show a higher cadence means an increase in blood flow to the muscles – which in turn, means more oxygen in the blood and a higher aerobic performance.

On the other hand, a low cadence at a high gear is more taxing on the muscles. It uses fast-twitch muscles, which burn glycogen for fuel, fatigue quickly, and takes a long time to recover before they can be used again. In other words, muscle strength doesn’t last long, so you’ll start to feel the burn faster than at a higher cadence.

While you might think that pedaling faster would be harder on your cardiovascular system, but that isn’t the truth. The cardiovascular system is a highly efficient system. Unlike the muscular system, it doesn’t take long to recover, and it is only limited by its capacity – how much air it’s getting in at any given time – not by how much work has already been done.

So what’s the ideal cadence for a cyclist?

While there’s no one magic number, aiming for 90 RPM is a good goal to avoid leg fatigue and making the most out of those slow-twitch muscles. Average cyclists have a cadence of about 60 RPM; advanced and elite cyclists pedal anywhere from 80 to 100 RPMs.

All of that said, changing your cadence isn’t something you can do overnight – it takes months. Your body has adapted to your current cadence and changing it requires work from all of your body’s systems: neural, muscular, cardiovascular, metabolic, etc.

HOW TO DETERMINE + IMPROVE CADENCE

Regardless of whether you’re a recreational rider or a serious racer, practicing to ride at a higher cadence will make your pedal stroke more efficient. By maintaining a steady cadence throughout your ride, you’ll become a better rider. But remember, this doesn’t mean you need to pedal faster in the same gear. As you climb, adjust your gear, so it’s easier and keep your RPMs consistent.

Before you can increase your cadence, however, you need to determine where you currently stand.

There are multiple ways to determine your cadence. The most basic and straightforward – though not necessarily the most accurate – is to count the number of times your right knee comes up during a ride in 30 seconds and double it.

In general, to improve your cadence, start off with shorter extreme efforts as well as longer more modest efforts. Why? According to Bike Roar, “By hitting cadence numbers beyond the norm, you’re training your brain to fire signals in the patterns required for your muscles to contract far more rapidly. Then when you hit normal numbers, it doesn’t seem as hard.”