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follow up on cadence vs power thing

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Old 18-01.-2008, 06:41 PM   #1
mortimer99
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Default follow up on cadence vs power thing

I am fortunate to live in nor cal and have been trying to do some outside sst when it isnt raining. I usually choose one of 2 routes. One is reletivley flat (about 400 feet of climbing in 20 miles) the other is a climb of about 2000 feet in 7 miles. I have noticed on the flat climb that I can hold my SST training watts at about 103 cadence, and it is very comfortable. When I do the climb, my candence is about 75-85, but if I go above that, it is uncomfortable (I can't hold a higher cadence climbing, its too friggin steep). Just wondering if this is an anomoly. Seems like if I climb I like a lower cadence, but when it is flat I like a higher one. Anyone else with this experience?
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Old 19-01.-2008, 01:02 AM   #2
root
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Default Re: follow up on cadence vs power thing

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Originally Posted by mortimer99
I am fortunate to live in nor cal and have been trying to do some outside sst when it isnt raining. I usually choose one of 2 routes. One is reletivley flat (about 400 feet of climbing in 20 miles) the other is a climb of about 2000 feet in 7 miles. I have noticed on the flat climb that I can hold my SST training watts at about 103 cadence, and it is very comfortable. When I do the climb, my candence is about 75-85, but if I go above that, it is uncomfortable (I can't hold a higher cadence climbing, its too friggin steep). Just wondering if this is an anomoly. Seems like if I climb I like a lower cadence, but when it is flat I like a higher one. Anyone else with this experience?
Technically you should be able to climb at arbitrary cadence if you have enough gear ratios available to you.

You can output same power at any cadence. So, increasing cadence you decrease force you apply to each pedal stroke. Decreasing cadence means you need to apply higher force to each pedal stroke to keep the power output the same. There may be a balance between the two for each rider. But generally, higher cadence, lower force means you stress the cardivascular system more. Higher force, lower cadence means stressing muscles, joints and tendons more, and if the force is really high and you go anaerobic, then you will stress everything . However, I'm not talking about short brute force L5, L6 climbs, I'm talking about long 20min or more climbs at L4 or slightly below.

If I have enough gears for the speed I want to keep I will generally keep my cadence higher because I feel more comfortable that way, and if the hill is so steep that even in 39/25 I can't produce enough power to keep my cadence at 105 or so I will drop it simply because I can't sustain that power output.
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