Comments on: Cadence: The Secret To Cycling Easily Up Hills

By: Mirosan

Mirosan — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 04:24:00 +0000

Nice work Alee, I’ve been playing with this on my last tour and came up with the same conclusions. use the gears to keep your or in this case my legs spinning in the comfortable cadence. And, enjoy the ride. Yup the hills weren’t all that much of a problem, until the end that is but that was another matter. For most of the trip I did just this and I was fine even at the end of each day.

By: Alee | CyclingAbout.com

Alee | CyclingAbout.com — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 21:18:00 +0000

In reply to Toby Park. You've definitely got your head around it all. And look, there's nothing wrong with going harder in the hills, and easier on the flat if you can recover in between to do it again and again. My main point is that you may be able to ride more efficiently if you don't load your muscles too much in the hills, resulting in better muscle recovery, day after day. It's definitely worth playing with your cadence and gearing!

By: Toby Park

Toby Park — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 20:00:00 +0000

So it seems to me the only reason cycling up hills is no harder than cycling on the flat is because you choose to normalise your effort levels to be the same, i.e. you choose to push just as hard on the flat as you need to up a hill (which in my book makes you either crazy or way fitter than me). So uphill you cycle 90 revs per minute, with a certain torque, equating to a certain power, which propels you up the hill pretty slowly as you’re in a low gear. On the flat you cycle the same 90 revs per minute, with the same torque, which propels you quickly as you’re in a high gear. You aim to keep everything constant except the gear which thus alters your speed. Right? Makes sense.
What I do, on the other hand, is cycle up a hill at a certain cadence and a certain torque, which is more effort than I could possibly sustain all day, so when it comes to the flat I reduce my torque to give my legs a rest… Your response might be, if I had a lower gear up hill I could maintain the same cadence and torque on the hills as I do on the flats and maintain a constant effort all day (i.e. the whole point of your article…). I guess that’s true and I should work on that but I’d be going damn slow up those hills!
I’m also not very good at maintaining constant cadence and effort for long periods. I tend to modulate, pushing for 20 minutes, then slowing the cadence to rest a bit, etc. Even with the chain off my legs would tire after 10 hours of 90revs per minute.
Maybe this is all a bad habit from a decade of riding mountain bikes with a single 38t front ring, in which case the only way up a hill is to exhaust yourself, then relax on the flats. So thanks for the article, I’ll work on my consistency of cadence. And get fit, perhaps.

By: Alee | CyclingAbout.com

Alee | CyclingAbout.com — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 10:41:00 +0000

In reply to Tom Shield. I've thought about this all day and the only other words I can think of that I think makes sense are 'physical exertion'. Again, not necessarily correct in an engineering sense, but perhaps more relatable to readers.

By: Tom Shield

Tom Shield — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 23:48:00 +0000

In reply to Alee | CyclingAbout.com. How about calling it how "hard" you are pedaling, as in how hard you push on the pedals? I think effort or work is too close to power to not cause confusion.

By: Alee | CyclingAbout.com

Alee | CyclingAbout.com — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 20:12:00 +0000

In reply to Tom Shield. Hi Tom. Thanks for your comment and you're right – in a strictly engineering sense, my terminology doesn't match up. I'm trying to keep my writing about this kind of stuff as easy to read and understand as possible. I chose 'effort' because I think people can relate to the feeling of more or less effort on a bike ride. Let me re-read my piece and see if I can improve the terminology further! Alee.

By: Tom Shield

Tom Shield — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 02:49:00 +0000

You equate (correctly) effort with power but never mention the needed pedal force (or alternatively applied torque). Power is the product of cadence and applied torque — most power meters measure the torque (some directly measure pedal force and multiply by crank arm length to get torque, etc ) and multiply by the cadence to get the power. So for a given power output you reduce the needed pedal force by switching to a lower gear to increase your cadence, which is what you describe above. This is what I would call reducing your “effort” while maintaining your power output, although I would not have picked the word effort in this context as effort is usually used to mean work which is related to power. To reduce the power required you just have to go slower.

I certainly agree spinning is the way to go, I prefer 100 rpm as a cruising cadence and shift when I drop down to 90. I don’t do long distance touring but still like to reduce the load on my knees.

By: Alee | CyclingAbout.com

Alee | CyclingAbout.com — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 10:08:00 +0000

In reply to Pit. It's an Ultegra chain. The cassette fitted onto the 11s road freehub body with a small spacer. Shifting is perfect!

By: Pit

Pit — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 09:14:00 +0000

Oh, excellent! Are you using an XT or Ultegra chain with it? I thought road and mountain 11-speed are not really compatible because of spacing. Thanks!

By: Pit

Pit — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 08:46:00 +0000

Hi Alee, very nice article! I’ve been digging through your linked resources and can not find out how you got those gears on your curve? Is it an 11-speed Ultegra long cage rear derailleur with Roadlink? I thought that would only work up to 11-36 cassettes? What cassette are you using?