This is an in-depth analysis video on bicycle cadence, clearly explaining why professional athletes stick to a cadence that is considered 'inefficient' rather than the 'optimal cadence' as defined by sports science, using physical laws, physiological perspectives, and historical trends. This video approaches cadence as a matter of strategic choice rather than just a number, and even provides practical training tips for regular bicycle riders.

1. The truth about cadence: It's not just a number! ⚙️

"What if the most successful cyclist of the 21st century ran at roughly the same cadence in every race he won?" 🤔 Champion Tadej Pogačar is surprisingly said to always maintain a constant cadence of 92 to 97 RPM in any race, including the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, and the World Championships. This is true even for a 250km flat race or a 30-minute mountain summit finish. But what's even more surprising is that sports science says this number is 'wrong.'

The video's host promises to delve deeper into bicycle cadence, emphasizing that he will correct what most cyclists misunderstand or are confused about. 🌟 I'm confident that by the end of this video, viewers will know more about cadence than 99% of cyclists, pointing out that common beliefs such as "you should ride at 90 RPM", "higher cadence is faster", or "lower cadence are bad for your knees" are conditional or false.

2. The basics of cadence: power, torque, angular velocity 🚀

So what exactly is cadence? 🧐 Cadence is simply revolutions per minute (RPM) which refers to how fast your legs are moving. However, the reason this number is the most misunderstood in cycling is because many people consider cadence to be the 'key'. In fact, cadence is just a setting value, and it is explained as a tool that we can utilize.

The key formula for understanding cadence is Power = Torque × Angular Velocity. ⚡️ For example, for the same power output of 250 watts, we can approach it in two ways:

• Low cadence: This method generates more torque by using heavier gears.
  • Applying greater force to the pedals forces your fast muscles to work faster, puts higher peak forces on your joints, but lowers your heart rate. 🏋️
• High cadence: This method uses lighter gear to produce more angular velocity.
  • The force applied to the pedal is small, but the number of repetitions is high, which puts less strain on the muscles and improves blood flow, resulting in smoother oxygen supply. Meanwhile, your cardiovascular system works harder, increasing your heart rate, breathing, and VO2. ❤️‍🩹

In conclusion, it is important to note that even with the same power, the cost to the body varies depending on the cadence. Just as Ulrich ran at 70 RPM and Froome rode at 100 RPM and both won the Tour de France, you need to understand that cadence is a trade-off, not a goal. 🏆

3. Paradox of the laboratory: Why do professionals choose inefficient paths? 📉📈

Since the 1980s, scientists have been measuring cyclists' cadence to consume the least oxygen for a given wattage. In other words, it was a study to find total efficiency. 🔬 Surprisingly, these studies consistently concluded that a low cadence of 50-80 RPM was the most metabolically efficient.

"Pros optimize everything so you'd think they should ride at 60 RPM, right? But they don't!" 🙅‍♂️ Professional riders usually ride at 90-105 RPM, trained amateurs tend to ride at 85-95 RPM, and even ordinary people tend to ride at 70-80 RPM. The point is that no one chooses the most metabolically efficient cadence. This is called 'freely chosen cadence paradox'.

The solution to this paradox is explained by three main reasons.

1. Reduced pedal force per stroke: The faster you turn, the less force you exert per pedal stroke.
   • This reduces peripheral muscle fatigue and improves oxygenation by lowering intramuscular pressure that blocks blood flow. This means your legs can hold out much longer. 💪
2. Protecting fast muscle fibers: According to a 1992 study, cyclists who rode at 50 RPM burned more glycogen in type 2 fast muscle fibers than cyclists who rode at 100 RPM for the same workload.
   • In other words, if you run hard at a low cadence, you use up the energy in your fast muscle fibers that can be used at important moments such as hills, attacks, and sprints. You can save this by running at a high cadence. ⚡️
3. Brain Preference: A 2020 study showed that the brain is happier at a cadence it freely chooses. 🧠

In conclusion, the reason professional athletes choose high cadence even at the risk of metabolically losing 5% of energy is to optimize 'endurance' in long races by sparing fast muscle fibers, reducing leg fatigue, putting less strain on joints, and relaxing the brain. While the lab was measuring efficiency, the pros were optimizing 'endurance'. 🚵‍♀️

Additionally, he explains that the optimal cadence depends on intensity. A recent study found that 66 RPM is optimal for low-intensity Zone 2, but goes up to 135 RPM for maximum sprint power. The bottom line is that "optimal cadence depends on the intensity at which you ride."

4. Cadence War: From Indurain to Pogachar 🚴‍♂️⚔️

It is no exaggeration to say that the history of professional cycling over the past 35 years is almost the history of cadence. 😮 There were three big paradigm changes.

4.1. 1st generation: Grinder (early 1990s) 🐢

• Miguel Indurain and Jan Ullrich are representative athletes. Indurain, who won the Tour de France five times in a row with great and strong power, was famous for his leisurely and heavy pedaling.
• "Indurain's cadence was unusually high for his size, but he actually ran at around 80 to 95 RPM compared to when people remember him." 😮 It was high compared to the previous era, but compared to the next generation, it seemed like a 'grinder'.

4.2. 2nd generation: Spin (since 1999) 🌪️

• Lance Armstrong and his coach Chris Carmichael came up with a high cadence strategy after returning from cancer treatment.
• "Lance Armstrong climbed big mountains at 95 to 110 RPM and pedaled up to 120 RPM during time trials." 🕺 At the time, the peloton thought he was crazy, but he danced ahead of Ulrich and won the Tour for the seventh time in a row.
• The goal of this strategy was to shift the load from the legs to the cardiovascular system, keeping them fresher and sparing the fast muscle fibers. However, the host candidly mentioned that Armstrong's success was accompanied by a big asterisk, doping, and analyzed that doping drugs may have alleviated the cardiovascular burden of high cadence. 💉

4.3. 3rd Generation: Team Sky (since 2010) 🌌

• Former track cyclist Bradley Wiggins brings track cadence training to road cycling. He won the 2012 Tour de France by maintaining a high cadence and also set an hour record of 107 RPM.
• Then, Chris Froome took this further and won four times with an aggressive style called the 'washing machine' style, in which he climbed the mountain at a high cadence of 95-100 RPM while sitting, then rapidly rose to 130 RPM.
• "Team Sky's philosophy was not to decide on the gear first, but rather to decide on the cadence first and then select the gear accordingly." 🚴‍♀️

4.4. 4th Generation: Pogachar Paradigm (Current) 🌟

• The current dominant player, Tadej Pogačar, is known to maintain 92-97 RPM in almost every match, regardless of match duration or terrain. He goes from a 172.5mm crank to a shorter 165mm crank, which reduces knee flex, creates an aerodynamic position and allows him to comfortably maintain higher cadences.
• Other top athletes also have their own cadence strategies, and in this day and age, the question has become less "what is the optimal cadence" and more "Pogačar has found his number and never strays from it. What is your number?" 📊

5. Track Sprint: Another World Cadence 💨

What we've been talking about so far has mainly been about long-distance road cycling, but track sprints are a whole different ballgame. 🤯 Surprisingly, cadence trends in track sprints over the past decade have moved in exactly the opposite direction from road cycling.

In the past, there was a saying, "spin to win," so small gears were used to achieve top speed at a high cadence of 170 to 180 RPM. But things are different now. 😮

• Nowadays, elite sprinters like Harrie Lavreysen and Matthew Richardson use extremely large gears (e.g. 55x12, 56x13) and maintain much lower cadences, around 130 RPM, even at top speed.
• This is because above 100 RPM mechanical efficiency drops, and above 140-150 RPM there is actual power loss due to the internal work it takes to accelerate and decelerate the leg itself**.
• As speeds improved due to advances in aerodynamic technology, athletes adopted a strategy of upping gears to lower their top cadence to an efficient range and using that efficiency to run faster. 🚀
• "The cadence for a modern track sprint race ranges from around 130 to as high as 150 RPM." 🎯

Track sprint training still involves a lot of small gear training at high cadences of 150, 170, or even 200 RPM or more. This is to increase the 'ceiling', since the higher this limit, the larger gears can be used in the race. 📈

6. Cadence training: Expand your range instead of a magic number ✨

So should you train your cadence? "Yes, but maybe not in the way you think." 😅 Many riders feel uncomfortable and give up trying to force a 'good cadence' such as 95 RPM, but the correct training method is to train the following three things separately.

1. Increase freely selected cadence: If you are currently at 75 RPM, the goal is to make 85 RPM the default.
   • Training method: Repeat 2-3 times a week, 5 sets of 1 minute at 105-115 RPM (light gear, gentle pedaling), 2-minute recovery for 8 weeks to naturally increase your basic cadence. 🔄
2. Increasing pedal torque ability: Develop the force you can apply to the pedals through low cadence training.
   • Training method: 4-8 sets of 5-10 minutes at 50-60 RPM at 80-95% FTP (preferably sitting on a gentle hill). This recruits type 2 muscle fibers and improves your ability to apply force to the pedals, which can increase your 20-minute power by about 4%. ⛰️
3. Extend your cadence limits: This is something most cyclists don't do.
   • Training method: 10-12 leg speed intervals of 6-10 seconds (rolling start, accelerate to 150-170 RPM in small gear), full recovery. Practiced once a week all year round, it builds neuromuscular limits that allow you to react at critical moments such as attacks, sprints, and acceleration. 🚀

There are also a few cautions: ⚠️

• If you have knee pain, do not overtrain at 50 RPM. At low cadences, the force on the knees roughly doubles.
• Don't force a cadence that's too high and cause you to bounce off the saddle. This is just leg speed training, not endurance riding.
• Do not use 'ergo mode' when training at low cadence intervals. Trainers may resist and fall into the so-called 'spiral of death'. Resistance mode or outdoor riding is recommended.

The host of the video also provides a cheat sheet on what cadence to aim for. If your cadence numbers deviate too much from these guidelines, it's a sign you need a lower gear or cadence training.

Finishing 🎁

Cadence isn't a magic number, it's a tool we can control. 🛠️ Rather than a perfectly metabolically efficient cadence, professional athletes choose a slightly inefficient high cadence to save fast muscle fibers and increase endurance during long races. The history of professional cycling has been from low to high cadence, and track sprints have their own unique world of cadence.

The most important thing to remember is broadening your cadence range, not chasing a specific magic number. 🌟 I hope this video gave you a deeper understanding of cadence and some practical training tips! 😊