Cadence Convertie

[junkie_ball]

Ok so been riding for awhile now and was using my old garmin forerunner 205 to log my rides which had very limit data. I recently changed to a garmin edge 810. I had been until recently using my average speed as a guide to how well my ride was going. The last couple rides i have made a point of trying to spin the gears and keep an average cadence of 90rpm. Just by doing this the climbs feel easier and my average speed has increased by approx. 1-2 mph and average heart rate dropped slightly. Defiantly will be using cadence as a training tool from now on!

 

[Crankarm]

Way to go. All you need now is a power meter .

 

[JasonHolder]

What was your normal cadence before?

 

[Rob3rt]

Has there been one of those articles in a magazine about how 90 rpm is the right cadence recently? What with all of these cadence threads...

 

[uclown2002]

Has there been one of those articles in a magazine about how 90 rpm is the right cadence recently? What with all of these cadence threads...

Do you measure yours?
If so, what sort of numbers do you get for different rides?

 

[Rob3rt]

Yes I measure it (even if I didn't 'want' to, I 'have' to, since a power meter needs to know cadence to calculate power from the torque applied to the crank), could vary from 80 to 95+ or lower (<70) if racing a steep hill climb.

I time trial at low to mid 80's. Not a conscious decision, that is where the power comes out for the least perceived effort, lowest heart rate and thus least ragged breathing. Couldn't give a shoot about how fast my legs are turning as long as the maximum power possible is being produced and the timers stopwatch confirms I have cycled faster than the other riders on the day. I know people who time trial faster than me turning over in the mid 70's. Others who pedal furiously at 100+ rpm.

There is no right rpm and using the pro's or even racers in general as an argument for why everyone on a bike should do it a certain way is misleading. Racers and pro's do things for reasons which are not immediately obvious nor relevant to general cyclists and they won't always do things in a way that is most efficient at a given time either!

 

[junkie_ball]

What was your normal cadence before?

On the first few rides with the edge average cadence was around 65-70. Guess i was using a too high a gear for maximum efficiency for me.

 

[JasonHolder]

Someone mentioned a setting to turn off with garmins cadence.
Gives you a true average then.

 

[Rob3rt]

Yes, cadence averaging should not include zero's. For practical purposes, you only want to know, when you are pedalling, what is the rate at which you are pedalling, including zeros in the averaging process will not allow you to know this.

If you do care about the zeros, you can obtain the time spent freewheeling later as zeros are still recorded in the raw data, just not used in the averaging algorithm in the Garmin itself. Now you can see, what proportion of the ride you were freewheeling, what proportion of the ride you were pedalling and for that proportion you were pedalling, what you typical cadence was.

 

[JasonHolder]

Yes that^ my meaning of true average was factually wrong but practically correct lmao

 

[jay clock]

It is a personal thing - I spin like a dervish. Just replaced the 50T ring on my Brompton for a 44T and in spite of reviews from people saying they could cycle up Everest with the piss-easy standard gearing I am very much happier