Why Your Cadence Is Slowing You Down

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivalo Coaching, Jarred Donnelly. Is there an optimal cadence you should be cycling at? Is lower cadence or higher cadence proven to be a more efficient way of riding? More specifically, is your current cadence slowing you down? And these are the questions we're answering in today's episode. And as always, this episode is brought to you by Giant for all your bike training and racing needs. Ride life. Ride Giant. Dad. Welcome back to another episode. We haven't had our normal starting segment for a while, so what are you grateful for?

Thanks, Jordan. Looking forward to another packed episode. Again, so much been happening around the world and our topic today is a beauty. I'm pretty passionate about this one. My gratitude is a little bit left field. We had my wife, Andy's grandparents staying at our place, which is your grandparents, and my mum has been staying a bit too over the last few years now and then. And just, I just got reminded when I spent the whole weekend with Andy's dad who's, you know, been a, a really hard working guy who had a flower farm for 40, 50 years and really knew the value of hard work and, and so much wisdom about business and, and he's, you know, he's in his late 80s and my mom's 91. To have those people around who've experienced so much and seen so much change generationally in technology and just the way we live and how they've adapted and, and that, you know, and also they, they can contribute so much to, to just listening to them and listening to their experiences. And Andy's dad Peter's actually written his memoirs in a, in a book which is pretty, pretty amazing to just chronologically write down what his life looked like. And it's great reading and there's some great little stories in there about some, as you said, controversial little things. But, but yeah, it's really good to have them around and I'm very grateful for that and especially to see their, you know, you guys grow up, your grandchildren and now, you know, your brothers, their kids and so that's great grandchildren for them and just to see them get on their, get on their start of their journey in life. It's, it's really just a great thing to have grandparents around.

I think it's a really cool idea he had, which is a few years ago, I think it was during COVID actually. He just decided he was going to write down the whole story of his life because we hear a lot, we can't get every story. And he spent years working on it. As he puts. He says, I'm getting towards the end of my life. And he said, it's not a book for the public, it's a book for family. But he's written everything in there and it's unreal. And he actually was. The term is the Order of the Medal of Australia, a recipient for a lot of his work he did over in Papua New Guinea. A lot of selfless charity work he did over there helping those communities. And so, yeah, I can't wait to dig more into the book. I've read a bit of it and it's really insightful. My gratitude is on a similar theme. I'm just grateful for friends and community you surround yourself with. I'm really learning all the time that who you surround yourself with is really important. And I'm grateful to have always good people around that it's what makes life better. So that's. That's my gratitude.

I love that one, Jordan. And as you kids were growing up, I was always saying to you kids, you know, really be careful who you select as your mates at primary school and secondary school, because you know you're going to be influenced by those people in a really good way if they're. If they're that sort of person and in a really bad way if they're. If they're heading in a different direction. So whoever you surround yourself with is going to have a big influence on whatever you do every day. And I'm not talking about school, I'm talking about in adult life. And I think that's a really good point to make.

Yeah. Moving on, next up, we want to chat about the insane couple of weeks of cycling racing that's just happened. But before we do, there is an unwritten rule in cycling that I want to address. And we love going through our unwritten rules on this podcast. And one I'd like to ask you about that is in cycling racing, if you're in a race environment and someone flicks the elbow to call you through, what is your obligation here? What is the unwritten rule here?

Jord, we don't have enough time in this podcast to answer that question. You hate this answer. It depends on the situation. And there's no difference here either. If you're all individual cyclists who have not got a team obligation, then it's a completely different scenario. But if you're working as a team, then you have to consider, and you see this on the World Tour events every week. You know, there's three riders in a break, two riders are rolling turns and one rider sitting on. And why is that rider allowed to sit on? Well, because he's got his number one rider back in the bunch and he's got this unwritten law that he doesn't have to do a turn, which, you know, for anybody outside of cycling, they'd be going, what? That is a ridiculous law, and it's an unwritten law. But if you're in a situation where you're just riding in a club race and you're in a rolling group of riders, and if your main task is to get to the end, then you don't have to roll a turn if you think that rolling a turn is going to prevent you from getting that successful outcome. But if your job is to be in a break and stay away from the people chasing you, there's no other reason except that you're selfish and you don't want to do a turn. That's not a good enough reason. You know, tactics comes into the race and you know, handicap racing is great for this. And this is different to criterion racing or road racing where flicking the elbow in a handicap race is, you know, if you're in a, in a handicap group, then you need to do your fair share of work. But if the group you're in is riding too hard and you can't sustain the effort, you probably get dropped from that group. Then that's a situation where you would definitely not roll a turn if you think that you, you would get dropped because you're, because you can't keep up with that pace. So there's so many scenarios, Jord, that, that would, that would, you know, to answer your question, you'd have to be asking specific question about, you know, this situation. What would you do?

Yeah, I, I do love that when I started racing, one of the things you said is that just remember that almost at no point I are you obligated to do a turn ever, no matter what the circumstances. And in circumstances you want to help. And you should be a team person and help like in those breakaways. But specifically just in a general race, if you find yourself near the front, there'll be guys rolling turns. But you are, you have no obligation or there's no rule that says you have to come through. And that's an important thing to remember.

I think you have to have a reason to roll a turn and the reason would be, if you're in the main bunch and there's 60 people in your bunch, there's no breakaway. Why would you be at the front at any point in that time? Why would you roll a turn, you know, unless you're cold and you want to warm up? That was about the only reason I could think. But other than that, you should be hiding. And the only time you should be at the front, rolling turns, if there's a group up the road that you want to catch. And even then, you're going to risk letting 50 people get a free ride. So it depends on what your outcome and goal is of that situation. But you're right. What you just said is there is no rule that you have to do a turn. And that's the bottom line.

Yeah. And that's why we call them unwritten rules. And we can confirm, basically from this chat, that it's not necessarily an unwritten rule, but one that is and that we love on this podcast, is that if you like these episodes and you find them useful, you can help us by sharing the podcast on your social media. No matter how big or small your social media list is, sharing is honestly the best way that you can help us reach more people like yourself that will enjoy this content. So, moving on. I mean, it's been a monster few weeks in cycling. First off, I think I want to chat about the devastating crashes and how it's just kind of turned the whole cycling world on the men's side upside down. The Tour de France was shaping up to be the best Tour de France in decades, I think. And we had four of the biggest powerhouses, GC contenders, all going man for man this year in Pogachar vs. Remco vs. Vineyard vs. Roglich, plus the likes of a lot of the other talented GC guys that are right in the mix. You know, those are the big four. But Sep Kusoff is Voucher win last year. A whole bunch of other names.

And Vanderpoel would be two other names you'd add to those four.

Yes. Yeah, I was more talking GC contenders.

But they do contribute to the Tour.

Yeah, for sure.

Contribute to the GC outcome. Without them.

Yes, for sure. Yeah, for Vinegar Van Art, for sure. You know, he really helped him win last year. Yeah, it was just. It was Remco's first time, you know, really prepping for the Tour. It was Pogucha having an uninterrupted season, coming back to try and knock off Vingard as Roglic going to his own team and then three to four of them have just crashed in, in a lead up race and more than likely not out of the Tour. So it's kind of just Pogucher on his own now. So really devastating. And then funnily enough, last podcast, I wouldn't, I shouldn't say funny, I said I should say, coincidentally enough, my last podcast, we were so hyped for Flanders and, and can well finally do it. And then I think that night in the Wednesday lead up race, him and a whole bunch of other one day favorites crashed out and he couldn't ride Flanders or Roubaix. So just really devastating. These things just really happen, don't they? Yeah.

And people are asking me, is this normal to have so many top level cyclists crashing so often? And I think, I think it is part and parcel of cycling that there are going to be crashes. I think the standard of rider is, is probably, you know, that we could do, do a topic on this as well is, you know, why the crashing? Why are there so many more crashes? But I don't think there are so many more crashes. I think, I think that when it's highlighted with probably three or four of the best riders have just been taken out in the one crash, I think that makes it feel like there's crashes going on all the time and there are crashes going on all the time, but they're not getting the same notoriety as this one does. And there's some really bad crashes that really take people out for a long time. Like remco 2 years ago when he went over that bridge down that ravine and was out for over a year. They're significant crashes that are life changing or career changing. And these, this crash, particularly at the Basque Tour, that was getting close to that. I think, you know, it's unfortunate that it's happened, but it has really turned the whole season. And you know, the Grand Tours are going to be completely different now with virtually three out of the four riders out of contention now. And I'm sure we're not dismissing, you know, all the other riders who are potential, but that's an opportunity for them now, you know, to, to, you know, when you look back in history, no one remembers in 1992 that, you know, this rider crashed and that rider crashed. All you remember is who won. And it's an opportunity now for those riders who might not be the main writers for their teams. And now they're going to have to step up and, and take that role of, you know, of, of being the main rider like you know, Visma, Lisa, bike. Now I've got, you know, vinegar out. So Sepp Kuss is the obvious replacement. So there's now all of a sudden more pressure on Sepp to. To be the leader. And, you know, the good thing is he's already won a Grand Tour, so he should have that confidence. But, you know, his form at the moment is not that flash, even though he's still got a long way to go till July. But, you know, these are the things for out of negative outcomes, you've got really good positive opportunities for other riders. So, you know, this is just happens in the naturally in life. Some. Some bad things happen, and then there's some really good things come out of it. So it'll be an opportunity for someone to step up and. And stamp their. Their name into the peloton going forward. So, yeah, it's just. It's just a natural thing that happens, unfortunately. But. But that's the way it is.

Yeah. And look, it all looks like Pocket Charge is going to do the historic double and take the the Giro and the Tour Tour de France. But same thing, Pocket Chart could crash in the next two months, and then suddenly, it blows it wide open for the next eight GC guys to all battle. And we saw that at the Giro a few years ago, where Jai Hindley, you wouldn't say the field was as deep with those main contenders. And Jai Hindley was able to take that and be a grant to a winner. And no one's going to think about, you know, who was there that year. They just know that he's won a Grand Tour, which is just absolutely incredible. And you shouldn't even say that in a sentence. It wasn't as deep. It's a freaking Grand Tour. He won, so that doesn't even need to be mentioned.

But he can only race who's in the race.

Exactly.

And if he's the best rider on the day, then he's the best rider and he's the Grand Tour winner.

Yeah. And we heard it last week in our interview with Jen Gregson. She talked about so many sliding doors moments in her career, and the biggest one being probably the worst injury she suffered in the worst context ended up being the greatest thing to happen to her career. So, yeah, very interesting when you start opening Pandora's box of what this means. So, yeah, very unfortunate for the riders. Devastating. But, yeah, it does open up doors for other artists to come through.

And look, you know, we never know whether Poga Char's wrist injury last year had a detrimental effect on whether he should have won the next Grand Tour, you know, because he wasn't able to train properly, etc. Etc. But no one remembers that. They just remember that vinegar was superior and you know, they're the things that happen in careers and you, you just have to take your opportunities where you can. And as I said, I think the first thing you said to me, oh, wow, what? You know, how about that crash? I said, look, you just don't know what's going to happen next, do you, in any, any level of athlete, whether you're an age grouper or, you know, trying to get, to get to your, your main race, or whether you're an elite rider who the world's watching for the biggest races in the world. You know, you just don't know what's going to happen next. You've just got to take every opportunity every day to make sure you most out of yourself.

It kind of, it reminds me of why we start the episodes with gratitude, because whenever you're injured or whenever you have a crash, you suddenly are so grateful for the times that you were healthy and that you were riding and you just wish that back. And it happens every time. And so when you can really remind yourself of that when you're not injured or you don't crash or you're not sick, it's a nice practice to have because when it's taken away, it's a shocking feeling. But yeah, anyway, we ended up having four epic races in Flanders and Roubaix. Yeah, just, it was honestly great racing all around. And I have to say one of the things that stood out to me was just how clinical some of the team tactics were. And Longo Borghini won Flanders, the Italian women's champion. And that was just a simple case of. It got to the end and there was two out of three little Trek riders. And Nuadoma had basically, you'd assume no chance that she put up a very good sprint. If Borghini didn't win that sprint, it would have been absolute disaster from those two little Trek riders to be two of three at the end. And they were only 20 or 30 seconds ahead of the chasing pack. And it was a great race all round, but yeah, a great win in Flanders.

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things we wanted to talk about for the two epic events that we were so looking forward to, which was Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix, which have now been done and dusted. And the team tactics for both male and female races were instrumental in allowing the actual Class of the rider to shine through. And the little trick riders did a great job with Longo Borgheni and she's won that event in Flanders, I think 2017 or 18. So she's won it before as a youngster and watching her being interviewed and she was saying I'm just a completely different person and writer than I was when I was a young, up and coming, talented writer. I had no idea. And now I understand the value of teams and the only reason I won today is because of my team. Sure I'm strong and I'm getting myself and making good decisions but, but having having that other rider beside me in a three man break gave me such an advantage over, over Nuadoma who you know, had to, had to think completely differently about how she's going to beat two riders who are ganging up against her. So, so, you know, you forget that, you know there are winners in, in these elite races, but it takes a team of, of really good domestiques to get you to where you are. And I love the way that that's an unwritten law, Jordan, that wins a race. You know, you should be saying first and foremost I want to thank my team for, you know, because you're getting the glory, you are the best rider. That's why you're the, the, the GC person or the, the one day rider that the team's riding for. But you, you know, very few people can do it without a team. And, and Roubaix was a classic example with the way Albertin rode. They just rode the best race and made van der Poel's race so much easier. It was incredible to watch.

Yeah, it was, it was truly a masterclass in team tactics. They just dominated the race. They gave him a free ride as much a free ride until he was ready to launch. And then his biggest rival was Mads Pettersen who also came down in that crash with Wout Varnard. And I don't know how much that's affected him, but it was just, it was almost like him against three Alperson guys, you know, and MVP went off the front. He was just too strong. He was getting away from Peterson and Peterson was having to chase him down on his own. And the other two, Jasper Filerson and the younger guy I think is Vermouche, just sat behind Matt Peterson and just let him try and chase Vanderpoel and, and Peterson just kept running out of legs. If he had maybe another one or two riders with him, that would be different, but they just dominated the team tactics. On. On Flander. I mean, it was, it was nice and dry conditions for Roubai, which is always nice to see. And I really do. I'm someone that's for that little chicane before Arenberg because it's just the amount of devastating crashes that happen there. It's exciting for everyone to see this steam train coming down the hill at 70k an hour. They hit Arenberg and. But once you're there and you, you see what the cobbles are like, you just really feel for the riders. And I'm glad that chicane's there. It brings them almost to a stop to start Arenberg. And it, it doesn't make it any nicer in terms of the cobbles, but it does definitely reduce the risk of injury. So it was good to see a dry day at Roubaix, but Flanders was quite wet. And how was it watching the Koppenberg? I mean, that specific climb is because it kind of sits in shade. And so even if it's not wet when it's cold and damp, it just stays damp. And we've ridden it in multiple conditions. And even on when it's been completely dry, no rain for a couple of days. There's sections in there that are still wet and they're still slippery, let alone that was a rainy day. It just looks like an ice rink. And these are the best, strongest riders in the world. And the entire. Both races, male and female, were walking halfway up the climb because they just couldn't get a grip on it. It's almost like once someone slips and their bike just slips and they come off, the whole peloton just comes down and everyone's running up and like, it's like a cyclocross race. Like, you don't just, you don't see that. Any other race where these cyclists having to sprint up in cleats, it's hilarious.

And you can't actually get any grip with your cleats on those slippery rocks. So you actually, it's. It's infuriating when you're off your bike and, you know, we've. We've been there six, seven years in a row and, and I think I've climbed it, I don't know, 10 times. And last year's Tour of Flanders for the Gran Fondo, where we rode it, it was similar conditions, epic rainfall. It didn't stop raining from the start of our ride to the finish. And, and I became quite proud of our effort that we actually all rode up it in the rain. And to see the pros actually have to get off and walk. I was thinking, wow, we did a good job. And the tyre pressure was the key. And if your tyres were too tight, there's no way you could pedal. Your back wheel just slipped. So the softer your tyres were, the more grip you got. And in that, when we came on that day to the Koppenberg, I just thought my experience in the past was I had. I had not been able to get up it if it was at all wet. And. And because I changed my tactic with the tyre, type of tyre I had and the tyre pressure, to my surprise, I got up it. And most of our, all of our group got up it. And here we are seeing the pros walking, which is almost. I actually enjoyed that, to be honest.

When we went, when we went last year and it was those wet conditions, we had a guy in our group that could speak French. And at the start of the race, he'd said, ale is obviously go, or, you know, that's what. But he taught us how to say, on your left or on your right and up that climb. All I was doing was screaming. I was just screaming, ale, are these guys slowing down in front of me or they're almost off their bike? I'm screaming, go, go, Ale. Ale, I'm saying on your left, on your right.

Get him away.

Just doing anything to try and keep up the momentum. And guys were coming off around you and you're going, get out of my way. Do not make me fall off here.

It was a bit of a Darwin theory, wasn't it? Survival of the fittest. You just did not want anybody to. To step off their bike in front of you because the minute you're off your bike, you're walking and it's not fun. So it was almost like these guys are human moment for me and watching the women's race and I can't remember, I think it was one of the girls fell and then 10 girls behind her just fell on top of her.

Because you can't do anything.

You're stuck.

Yeah, yeah, Absolutely epic few weeks of racing. Hopefully we don't see any more devastating crashes from here on. But, yeah, it's always our favorite time of the year. And there's still the, you know, whole bunch of classics still to go, which are so exciting. So can't wait.

It's literally halfway through Jordan now. We've, you know, we've got Flanders out of the way almost, and, and look, there was, you know, we, we picked on Tour of Flanders and Roubaix as two of the epic races and there was Gent Wevelgen. There was, you know, se. There was five other races in Flanders that were, you know, not quite the monuments, but geez, they're. They're unbelievable races to win and to be in. And now we go from Flanders to the Ardennes, which is the other side of Belgium, which been lucky enough to go and ride Fleche, Wallone, Liege, Baston, Liege, Amstel Gold in Netherlands. And. And these are the next three races that are, that are huge. And, and it's exciting because Matthew van der Poel's riding two of those. He's riding Amstel Gold and he's riding Liege. Not sure about Flech Malone, but having experienced all those gran fondos as well and gone and ridden those. Those areas, it is just an unbelievably fantastic place in the world to ride your bike. And the climbs are just as bad as Flanders and if not steeper and longer, but they're bitumen, which is kind of good actually, because you feel like you're in more control. But there's some epic races coming up and yeah, I just can't wait for this next part of the season and we'll see Pogachar come out to race at Liege Bastogne. And that should be a good one to see how good van der Poel is against him for sure.

And I will say that it was pretty incredible to see both world champions win Roubai, you know, Lottie Kopecki, who obviously came out of nowhere to win that race, but winners find a way to win. And I was saying to you that Roubaix is the least likely race for a favorite to win. I think out of every race in the world, it's. It's one where. And Van der Poel, I think said this before the race. He said, why are you putting me as such a clear favorite? So much can go wrong. It's just a race where so much can go wrong. And so to have the two best riders in the world, world champions wearing the rainbow jersey win that race is pretty spectacular, I thought.

And even the way Lottie Kopecki won the sprint when I was watching in the velodrome, she was in the worst position to win that race. And she somehow managed to get around them and win the sprint, which was. It was great to see her win. And you know, she is unbeliev talented rider being a world champion. Obviously she is, but to see her, to see her win that title and to see Vanderpoel back it up and you know, you have to have a lot of luck. I know that. But if you. If you ride smart, you can eliminate most of the bad luck. And the way that. That Alperch and de Kinck were able to, to ride as a team for Vanderpoel gave him less opportunity to have bad luck. And everybody can get a puncture. And I know. I know the majority. Like, I had four punctures last year at Roubaix, so I kind of understand how easy it is to get one when. When you are in a group of 10 or 15 riders, you actually can't see the potholes that you need to be avoiding. And that was what was causing my punctures, was I was hitting. Getting pinch flats because I'd had to. I had to put tubes into my. To my tyres, which I didn't want to run. And if you're not seeing what's coming up ahead. Whereas where van der Poel sitting near the front and he's seeing clear road the whole time, and I think that's a huge. A huge advantage. And that's where a lot of the unlucky punctures come. It's because you're not actually seeing the road clearly and you're not taking the best line a lot of the time. So that's where you come undone. And I think there's a lot of nuances that happen in these races where you're just following wheels all the time. And that's where a lot of the unluckiness comes, because you're not. You know, there's so much happening. Riders can't. On a bitumen, they can point out things, whereas on. When you're on the cobbles you've experienced, it's impossible to move your hands off the handlebars.

Yeah. You're not pointing out a pot.

You are not going to leave your hands off the handlebars for one second because the handlebars will bounce left or right.

You hang up for life and.

And you can't yell because the noise that you know. And. And what are you pointing out? There's 50,000 potholes on these cobbles. So what do you. You're going to point every one of them to the person behind you. It's not the time to be doing that. It's every man for themselves on these. And that's where the unlucky side of the race comes.

Yeah, yeah. And that brings us into today's topic, and we want to talk about a way to not make yourself unlucky and a way to get the most out of yourself and ride the most efficient, efficiently. And that is talking about cadence and gear selection and how to get the most out of this bike that you're riding, this machine that you're riding. Because what's happening down when you're pedaling with your chain and the gears that you're selecting has a huge impact on your performance and how hard it is for you to ride, and that impacts your overall speed. And obviously, the whole goal of why we're riding is to hold the average high speed for the most efficient effort. So really we've said, is there an optimal cadence and is there a go to cadence? And we want to start talking about this, but we're going to quickly shift the conversation towards gear selection, because for us, that is the conversation that gets you more bang for your buck. Rather than worrying about the cadence, we're about to explain why. But quite simply, I'll start with just by saying straight up, from all we know, with scientific evidence and the research out there, there is no one optimal cadence. You cannot definitively say that 85 RPM is going to be more efficient for someone than 95 or 105. There may be an efficient cadence for each person if they were to fully test that, really test it in depth, but it's just too hard to say otherwise. And therefore, the notion is that your go to cadence is probably going to be the most efficient for you because that's the one you train the most and that's the one you're most used to.

Yeah, it's a hard one to generalize on, but that's exactly what we have to do. We have to be general, because what works for one person is not necessarily going to suit the physiology of another person. And not only the physiology, but their structural, muscle and skeletal systems are. All their levers will be different because they're different height, they're different, different weight, they pedal differently the way they've grown up. Were they a track rider when they've got beautiful pedaling efficiency, or they're just new to the sport where they've just been riding a bike in the last year? So, you know, there's a whole range of abilities and there is no one cadence. And people say to me, what cadence should I be riding? Well, mine is, what's your go to cadence? What do you feel the best at? And if that's still preventing you from getting your bike to ride faster, then we need to do something about getting you to ride a better cadence that'll allow you to ride your bike faster. That's all we're trying to establish here, what cadence is going to allow us to get our bike to go from A to B faster. And, and at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to hone in on here.

And look, this notion that, you know, your go to cadence is probably the most effective for you, that's a great little general statement, but we don't buy into that fully because that can't be true if you haven't tried and tested all cadences. You know, you might have just started pedaling and your go to cadence became 83 RPM. And you just stuck to that for your whole cycling career. You've never actually tried to ride at 90 or 95 or 105 or 70, you know, and so how do you know what's best? And it's kind of like a, a positive feedback loop where you try it once, you try riding at 90 or 95, 100, because you're so untrained and it's very uncomfortable. And so then you don't go back there again. You try it once and then and never again. Whereas if you found your trainer properly and you got used to that kind of more cardio effort that a higher cadence sometimes results in, you might find that after a bit of training and once you adapt to it, you prefer it. So we, we don't ever want an athlete to say, you know, I tried a high cadence once, it was too hard, or I tried low cadence and it doesn't suit me because that, that statement just can't be true. And we really push our athletes to, to test a lot of different cadences and we really structure it. We, we actually schedule it into our sessions to force people to, to broaden their range of what they're capable of.

And look, I have absolutely gone into a lot of detail in my own writing where I have trialled 75, 80, 85, 90 on time trials, on flat courses to see where I feel more comfortable A and then to C, what was the fastest. So they're the two things I'm looking for. What could I sustain and what was the fastest. And I've done that on myself. And I know that the, the gradient or the course profile has a lot to do with my decision making about what cadence I'm going to ride. If I know that it's a pancake flat course that's only going to be influenced by wind, then I will probably ride a lower cadence. But the minute I've got some undulations in the course, I'LL absolutely be riding something that's a little bit higher than I would for my flat course. And that's, that's an example of me looking at how I'm going to adjust my cadence according to A, what's going to make me faster, and B, what the course profile is. And so at all times, you've got to be thinking like that, you know, even though I know from all of my years of writing that 87 RPM is what I end up in most time trials, that's what I end up with. And so most of those courses are variations of flat and undulating. But if I'm on a really long, flat, standard course, I would drop it to 1 to 85 or 84 or something around those numbers because I know that I can sustain that. But if also I haven't been in form where I'm strong and my legs aren't able to carry me with a lower cadence, then I can't actually do that because I'll just get tired and all of a sudden my power will drop with that low cadence that I'm pushing. So there's so many things that can come into making the decision about what cadence is suitable for you.

And this is where we're about to move into the gear selection conversation. Because sometimes the terrain will kind of dictate your cadence for you a little bit, just based on your gear ratio. On your bike, you might hit a certain gradient uphill or flat or a slight incline where you might prefer 85. But to be sitting in the power range that you want, and to be sitting where is comfortable, power wise, it might be a slightly higher or lower cadence that you'd prefer. But if you change up or down gears, you're not in the right power range. And so then the power is kind of dictating where that cadence needs to be. And if you're only sitting at your go to cadence all the time, and you're not used to that, you know, you're not used to riding a 5 or 7 rpm higher because the gradient is dictating that you're. You're in a bad position because you haven't trained that. And so we, we really kind of emphasize both ends of it, but especially we really push people to practice riding, you know, 95-105 RPM. Not because we say that's a more efficient way of riding, but because it is quite uncomfortable for a lot of people who are used to grinding away. And once they get comfortable of that cadence, they do find that dropping back to their, even mentally, just dropping back to their. From 95 to their go to cadence of potentially 85 feels a lot better and they're not under so much stress cardio wise. You know, there is definitely evidence that increased cadence results in increased breathing rate, increased heart rate, stroke volume, et cetera. That doesn't make it less efficient. That just naturally, it's that cardio feeling that is stimulated, that everyone gets that, that feels like. But if you can train like that, get your body to adapt and get it under control, then you almost feel like you have some super powers here that you can, you can write any cadence you want and feel comfortable.

Yeah, there's a lot to be divided amongst that sentence you've made. And especially if you end up into a. You know, a lot of people say to me, well, I turned into the headwind and I just felt like I was grinding. And, you know, what should you have done about that? What? And they're saying, what should I have done? I'm saying, well, this is the opportunity for you to ride a higher cadence and try and keep the power in the range that you want to. And if you haven't practiced that, it's no different than practicing nutrition. If you go to a race and you're trying something new for the first time in your nutrition, your stomach may accept it or it may not. So going to a race where you've Only ever ridden 85 RPM in all your training sessions and you haven't experienced experience 75 or 60 or 95 or 100, you don't have any options. So train with variations in cadence will give you so many options on particular days where, oh, my legs are feeling quite heavy, I can't push the gear that I want to.

Great.

Go to an easier gear and try to ride the headwind with a higher cadence. And you'll find that because the wind's so strong, your power will be in the range anyway. So these are little things that you can, you know, we want people to practice and some of our recovery rides for the cyclists we coach, we ask them to do a cadence recovery ride where they're riding. They might be riding 100 watts, which is, you know, 40% of their FTP. But I'm asking them to ride at 100 RPM or 105 RPM. So they're using their recovery ride as their practice session for learning how to ride cadence properly.

Yeah. And honestly, it leads us off the topic of cadence because we're not going to sit here and debate what's the best cadence is or not. We give our reasons for our approach to things, but what we're really noticing is so many athletes aren't using their gears properly. And what that is doing is creating really inefficient riding. It's creating basically the bike to go slower overall. And we want to explain, explain, explain why. So what, what are you noticing, dad, with athletes and, and gear selection and, and gear changing?

Well, the first thing I'm noticing, Jord, is it's like they've bought a bike with no gears. They've got one gear and. And that's an over exaggeration. I know. But seriously, you know, when I grew up, I think we had a choice of maybe eight gears at the back or straight block. I think we had six gears. When I first started riding in the early 80s, we might have had six gears at the back and two at the front. So it gave us a choice of 12 gears. Well, now we've got a choice of, you know, all the way up to 12 at the back. So we've almost got double the choices of our rear cassette to enable us to have, you know, two times that, which is 24 gear choices we can have for big chain ring, small chain ring and 12 at the back. Whereas, you know, my day we had six at the back for big chainring, small chainring. So we've got double the selection. But I just find that, you know, people are using less of those gear selection choices. You've got those gears there, start using them. The first thing you need to do is continually change gears. And I think I gave you the example of one of the rides I did just recently. I didn't even know my Garmin did this. I flicked across one of the pages and it said I'd change gears 2300 times in that 70k ride. And I thought I changed gears a lot, but that to me was crazy. And I could see some people going for their rides and they might have changed gears less than 50 times. You know, every time I'm coming to a changing gradient and on some of the rides that you do, the gradients, you know, there is no such thing as a flat road. You know, the road, you can feel the pressure off your legs and you can feel the pressure come back on your legs on a flat bit of road. And you may need to change gears just to keep the cadence where you want it and the pressure on the pedals. They're the two things we want. We want to keep the pressure on the pedals Even to be in the power ranges we're trying to train at or race at. And therefore we want to keep the cadence in that go to area that we know we're most efficient at, or whatever the session's asking you to do. Ride higher cadence or lower cadence or your go to cadence. But whatever's happening on the outside world, on a road that you're riding on, you can feel that change in your legs. You know, when you sl, all of a sudden it's that gear feels harder instantly. I feel that in my leg. I've changed gears already. I'm not even hesitating. I've got my fingers ready and the minute it feels easier, I'm back onto the harder gear. And so in the space of 50 meters, I could have changed gears twice. And if you're going to do 80km, you can imagine how many times you're going to be changing gears in that scenario. So to think that you're only going to use the gears if something extreme happens, that's the wrong way to about riding your bike. You need to be using the gears all the time so that you can actually stay in two things, the cadence range you want to and the power range you want to. And so using the gears to enable you to do that is the thing that I found that people are struggling with the most.

Yeah, it's such a brilliant point. And I think it is so under underutilized and under misunderstood with cycling is that gear selection and gear changing is a huge skill that if you're not getting right, you are losing heaps of efficiency and heaps of speed and you're probably working harder than you need to in a ride. And we always talk about this, the better the rider, the more they're getting all these little things right, the more that they're staying within the power range and not going above or below. And that means they're not wasting any bikies, they're not wasting any excess energy riding too hard or having to speed up again because they've ridden too easy. They're keeping that power in the range. They've got all these little things right. Cornering, you know, they're bike handling, they're keeping momentum up and downhill, they're keeping momentum through corners because they know how to take corners the most efficiently. We've spoken about a lot of these in the podcast episodes. And then gear selection. By changing gears properly and having that skill right, they're saving as much energy as possible without having to stop and start and lose momentum, build momentum back up. And what this does is they're riding faster while being the most efficient with their energy use. And it's funny because you'd think that because they're fitter, they could probably get away with getting those things wrong. They could probably get away with riding higher power and being able to recover because they're so fit, that these are the top end athletes we're talking about. They could probably get away with not changing gears as well because they're fit enough to recover. And the less experienced you are, and the more of a novice athlete you are, the more these things actually hurt you because you're not fit enough. But. But we see an opposite trend where the beginner riders are getting these extra things wrong, which are most important for them to get right, and the more experienced athletes are getting it right when they could probably get away with getting it wrong. So there's a funny contrast here, but I think the real summary of what we're saying is that you really need to be paying attention to your gear changes. But can you really explain to the listener why it's such a problem, why we think it's misunderstood? And what's happening if you're not changing gears properly? What's happening in a race environment that's such a bad thing?

So we're wanting to try and keep. And let's just use the time trial example. Let's not use a crit race or a road race or a Tour of Flanders example. We're talking about time trialing. So in a time trial situation, you're trying to keep the power in the range for that 20km, 90km or 180km, whatever the time trial distance is, your main goal is to keep the power in that range. And so how do we do that? Well, it's pressure on the pedals. And why are we trying to keep the power in the range? Because we don't want to spike ourselves below or spike ourselves above the power so that we can actually be strong in the second half or the latter stage of that time trial. So we can hold the power that we've started with all the way to the end and possibly ride harder power at the end. And so that's the goal of time trial. That's the ultimate way to ride a time trial. Start at the number you think you can hold and then beat it by the end. That's the perfect execution of time trialing. So at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we stay in those ranges. And what's going to make the bike Go fastest is keeping the pressure on the pedals. And so we talk about pressure on the pedals a lot in our podcast. The reason is because if we have pressure on, off, on, off all the time, the bike is going faster, slower, faster, slower. So we want to keep the bike momentum going as much as possible. So any moment that you start to grind a gear and your cadence drops to 60 or 50, the bike will slow down because you are actually losing momentum. And instead of changing the gear, when you get to that start, if you're riding along the flat and all of a sudden you know there's a hill coming, don't wait till you're 50 meters into the hill before you change gears. Get the first gear change done right at the base of the hill. So if you're trying to ride 85 RPM, for example, the minute you hit a gradient that's gone up 2% from what you were riding, you're still in 85 RPM because you've changed gears and you've got the pressure. It's just the same pressure that you had on the flat. And of course, the bike slows down, but you've got the same power, same cadence. The bike slows down because you're going uphill, but the momentum of the bike has not changed if you stayed in that big gear, eventually the momentum of the bike will slow down quicker than if you're keeping the pressure on the pedals, because there'll be a point where you can't sustain the pressure on the pedals in that low gear because it's just so inefficient to do that, unless you've been doing, you know, only strength efforts on a bike. And that's an inefficient way to time trial, because there's going to be maybe 10 more hills where you're going to get worse and worse and. And the leg strength is going to be zapped out of you. So there's a hundred reasons why you shouldn't be doing that, and the main one is that we want to concentrate on is that the bike's going to be less efficient in its average speed. So being ready to change gears, no matter what happens is the classic way to ride a time trial properly. I'll give you an example. There was a day during the year where I was at two races and I ended up having to drive. I started a time trial off with the guys, and then I was going to watch the triathlon down the road. So I actually jumped in the car and drove in the middle of our time trial group, behind one of our good riders. And if I didn't know where he was on the course, whether it was downhill, uphill, on the flat, I would have thought that his cadence hadn't changed one bit. And it was just brilliant to watch him in the car behind him stay in the TT position. And his leg cadence stayed the same, no matter what hill he came to, whether he was going up it, on the flat, on the crest, on the downhill, his cadence stayed the same. It was. I wished I could film it while I was driving. If someone was in the car would have been great because. Because he was changing gears that many times to make sure his cadence and his pressure on the pedals and his bike speed remained the same. And this is a guy who was, I think, that day he rode 44.5 ks an hour. And it's an undulating course he was on. And I could not tell if I didn't know the road that we were driving on. I couldn't tell whether we're going uphill or downhill by watching his cadence. And if I. He was passing other riders and their cadence was literally grinding up these hills, which is a great thing for me to say to them at the end of the race. I was saying, look, I followed one guy and he rode 44Ks an hour. I followed you. You rode 32Ks an hour. You were grinding up the hill, and he was spinning the same gear the whole way around the course. And that's a great example of what can happen to your bike speed if you keep these fluctuations and. And let the hill. You just stay in the same gear like you're on a fixed wheel, and let the hill dictate, you know, how much pressure you put on. You can dictate that by changing gears, you can dictate how much pressure you keep evenly against the pedals by using your gears. And the cadence is the number you would look down at your screen at to remind you that, okay, I'm trying to ride 85rpm as the example we're using, and all of a sudden I see it drop straight away to 72. You know, that's not going to go more than one second before I've changed gears twice and I've got it back to 85, and I've got the pressure back where I want it. If I let that go for 10 seconds, I'm virtually slowing my bike down. Because, sure, if I'm really talented, I can apply the pressure at a lower gear, but that becomes very taxing as I said before.

And then if you're too late, you end up panicking and kind of jumping gears really quickly. And then you've really stuffed your pedal action up, and you probably pedal it 30rpm for a second or two while your gears jump down. And then you have to grind away to build that momentum again, to build it back up. It's really an inefficient use of 510 or potentially 15 seconds. And that's such a great example of that rider. And if you were looking at the data, you know, they're just locked into that position. Doesn't look like they're changing. If you look at the data, their power range. I know the rider you're talking about, he would have been sitting between 300 and 320. And whether he was uphill or downhill, he would have been fluctuating outside of that that much. Maybe on the uphill, he was up to 330 watts. And on the downhills, when it was really downhill, he was probably a bit lower, but the rest he was probably just at 300 or just under. So his power range really wasn't changing. His cadence wasn't changing. The only thing that was changing was the speed. And so that's different to what we're talking about. We're talking about the momentum and almost the velocity of the bike, which remains continuous. And the speed is just the outcome. So we focus on our input, on the process. The speed is the outcome. So of course the speed is changing. He's not worried about that. He's worried about his process to keep that bike moving. And it would be really great if you could put the identical rider next to him, the exact same person. If you could get a hologram or something, but get them to ride it how most people ride and some inefficient gear changes. Get to a hill and grind it out a bit and end up going way over the range up the hill. Maybe they ride at 350 or 360 watts and then end up having the wrong gear over the top and then back down on the descent and riding way under. What you'd end up see happening is this yo yo effect, where they might. At the back half of a hill, they might actually get away from the original rider, who's riding really well, you know, because they're putting more power down, but they've gone too far above the power range, which is not what we want. As they get over the top, they ease up way too much because they're not using the right Gears, their momentum slows down. It takes them a while to get find the right gear, whereas the OG rider just keeps this consistent momentum. And we see this happen all the time. The OG rider who rode really well will just. Rider A, we'll call him, will just fly past them over the top and then gain them on the descent. And that consistency, they'll slowly just keep getting more and more further away, whereas that rider B, will, might gain some time at the back half of some hills because they're really pushing it, but they're going to lose it on the flat and they're going to lose it on the descent. And over the whole race, they're just going to slowly and slowly fall more and more behind because they're yo yoing so much. And that's what we're trying to avoid.

And I think the question I'm getting asked a lot from all, all standard riders, and I'm talking good time trialers who are trying to get better. I'm talking intermediate riders who've been doing it a long time and still want to learn, and I'm talking novice people who are brand new to the sport. And to be fair, they're the easier ones to get it right right from the start because they haven't got any preconceived mistakes that they've been doing over 30 years. It's hard to change that type of rider who's been riding that way for so long. So the question's being asked to me, how do I stay in the range? And the simple answer is, the gears allow you to stay in the range you want. And, you know, the wind or the gradient are the factors that are working against you the whole time. Whether it's a strong headwind, crosswind or a tailwind, whether you're going uphill, downhill on the flat, they're the things that are going to prevent you from keeping the pressure and the power in the ranges you want. So the minute you lose control of your cadence, that means if you get to the bottom of a hill, for example, and you know straight away that the minute you start to hit that climb, if you're trying to ride 200 watts, guess what happens when you hit the start of that climb? It goes to 220. You want to stop that from happening before you see 220 on your screen. When you hit the bottom of the climb, you should already have dropped down to an easier gear, and the power might have gone from 200 to 190 for one second. But at least you're in the Right gear, and then the gradient kicks in, and now you're back at 200 and you're in the right cadence. So the pressure is still the same that you're applying. And if the hill goes for another five minutes, then you're in the right gear and it doesn't change gradient, great. But if the hill goes steeper or dips to an easier, then you have to adjust again. Every time you feel the pressure on the pedals change, you need to change gears straight away, and you have to have your finger on that gear lever the whole time, ready to do something about it and not wait 2 seconds, 3 seconds before the power goes up and yo, yo's down. And if you do that over the space of a 90k event, do that every two or three seconds over 90k. And we talked about me changing gears 2,000 times. If you're not doing that, those two or three seconds will slow your bike down. You know, every. You might lose 10 meters every time you do that. So over the course of 90km, you could lose 2km from where you should be if you've just used your gear selection and pressure on the pedals better without changing your fitness. And that's how you stay in the power range. The gear selection is there to keep you in the right cadence, which will eventually allow you, after two or three seconds, to get back into the right power. And if you're very clever at this and practiced it a lot, you're already in the right power range and the right gear before you get to the uphill or the downhill. And you know that when you get to the crest of a hill, you know, okay, I can now go back in easier gear to keep the pressure on the pedals to stay in that 200 watts. Okay, the bike, the pressure's coming off. I can feel it on my legs. The bike's going faster, quick, bang, up to a couple more gears so that I'm still got the same pressure on the pedals. My power's still 200. And at no stage, you know, whether you're going up or downhill. If we were to try to aim 200, and we've told you on the podcast, when you're going uphill or into headwind, we want to be middle or upper range of power, or when you're on downhill, middle or lower range of power. But I'm just saying, as an example, if I wanted you to stick at 200, whether you're going flat, uphill, or downhill, you would just be using your gears so much more. If that Was your goal just. The coaches said 200 watts. Don't care where you are. Flat, uphill, downhill. And you would be doing everything in your power to. Power's the wrong word. Everything in your mindset to make sure that you're changing gears so the pressure's still at 200 watts, and that's the way you should be thinking. And then the next level is okay, I'm on an uphill, it's okay to be. Not at 200, it's okay to be at 210. And when I'm on the downhill, okay, it doesn't have to be 200. It's okay to be at 190. They're the, the nuances that you, that you can then learn after you've learned how to stay in the right. The right power with the right cadence and the right pressure on the pedals. And that's the reason why the bike can go fast. Obviously, fitness and training and practicing these things are going to make it so much easier. It's not something you can just go on race day and go and execute. It's no different to the nutrition you have to practice in training. If you don't practice this geared selection every time you ride, then it's not going to become second nature to you. You're going to be really, bam, you know, almost paralysis by analysis on race day, not knowing what you're doing because you haven't practiced it. And, and don't think that this is an insignificant factor. This is a major factor in what I see when I look at the power profiles of the post race analysis. I see so many spikes of, of high and low power where people are not changing gears. And, and, you know, Training Peaks has got a great analysis where I can hover my mouse and see what their cadence was, what their speed was and what their power was. And, you know, if they're, if they're trying to ride 200 watts as our example, we're using. And I can see they're riding 90, I would look to see if, if they're doing over 50 or 60Ks an hour, I'll let them get away with that because. Because that's a reason why you wouldn't. You can't contribute to the bike going faster, so you don't need to really push the pedals. But if you're doing, you know, 30Ks an hour and you're only doing 90 watts, I'm asking why. And then I look at cadence and it says 70. And I'd say that's why you haven't changed gears. And if you get those things right, then all of a sudden, for the same fitness level, you could possibly be 2km up the road further, which is in some cases at 30ks an hour, four minutes faster. 2km is four minutes at 30ks an hour. So just by not even being fitter, you can actually get a faster time.

It really highlights just how much of cycling how often we say that you don't need to get fitter. You can do X, y, Z things and go so much faster on the bike. And this is just another one. If you get this right, then you're getting free speed on the bike, which is what we're about. And you could be accused, dad, of being quite pedantic about the way you ride this way. And if anyone ever goes on a zone two ride with you, they'll notice this, where you are constantly getting half wheeled or people pushing hard up a hill on easy rides. And you are really adamant about not following them. And I've seen experiences where someone's chatting to you and they start pushing up a hill a little bit and they keep chatting and they're getting away from you and you just refuse to stay with them. And they end up talking to themselves because they end up three or four meters ahead of you. And you're so willing to just maintain your tempo because you're practicing that and then it's almost over the top. It's ridiculous. It looks like you're playing games with them because over the, over the crest and then down the hill, you put 20 meters into them because you've kept the same pressure on the pedals, they've surged and then eased up. And it might seem like it's pedantic, and it might seem like it's too much of an exaggeration, but how you train is how you race. And you can't just say, like, oh, we're just on a casual ride, whatever, let's just have fun, you know, let's just do some surges here and, and not get the pressure on pedals over the top. But you can't expect to race that well if you're not doing it in training, even on a zone two ride.

Yeah, and look, the only time would be a coffee ride where it doesn't matter. And even then I'm still practicing keeping pressure, even at 100 watts, you know, and that's why I gave that example of doing the session, you know, 100 watts at 100 cadence. And, and you're practicing in every single time you're riding so it just becomes automatic. We're trying to make these things automatic so you don't have to think just about that. You can think about other things that are, that are going to be more important and critical on race day, such as, what's my aero position? Have I been drinking? Is my heart rate right? You know, what's my average power being? What's, you know, am I in a headwind or a crosswind? You know, you can think about all those things rather than, you know, it's automatic for me to change gears and use my gears for whatever the pressure I feel in my legs. And so that's what I'm trying to get our athletes to think like, is get this so automatic that you're not thinking about this on race day. That's something it's taken away, you don't have to worry about because there's other more important things. And I'm not saying this isn't important, this is really important. But you can add to your speed by then concentrating on things that, that are going to make you go as fast as, just as much as getting the right gear changes and gear ratios and pressure on the pedals right, so that your bike's going to a constant fast speed that you want it to be.

So, in summary, practice more changing your gears more, practice being in the right gear, being a more even rider throughout your rides, and don't be afraid to be flicking constantly. I think that's one of the biggest lessons is you start at this point by saying that it looks like athletes have one or two gears on their bike because that's all they're using. Whereas practice flicking your gears up a lot more than you used to and seeing how much it changes your ride. Anything else to add?

Yeah, look, just one final thing. A lot I see a lot of bike riders on road bikes and, you know, time trial is a lot easier because the actual gears are at the end of your time trial bars. So your finger should be pretty much grabbing the lever or the button, depending on whether you've got electronic or manual. And so, you know, I understand that, you know, it feels like an effort to keep changing the manual gear lever that you've got, but that again, should be something you should get on top of. Make sure that you've got your hand right next to that lever so that if your lever's away from where your hands are resting, of course that's going to mean you're going to have to move your hand. We don't want to be in that position that's why electronic is so much easier, because underneath your thumb. But if you've got a lever at the end of your extension bars on a triathlon bike, you need to have your hands on those levers so that you can actually not have to move position to change gears and moving position to change gears. You'll go, oh, I won't worry about it. I'll just stay in this gear. And that's not what. We don't want you to do that. We want you to be changing gears as much as possible. Then on the road bike, as another example, I see people with their hands nowhere near the brake hood levers. And most bikes now they're not. You know, in my day, the gear lever was on the down tube, so you actually had to lift your hand off the handlebars and change gears between your legs. And people probably don't even ever know that that that style of bike existed. But that's how we had to change gears. It was on the down tube. And so you need to have your hand or finger a over the top of your brake hood so you can brake if something happens really quickly. And if you want to change gears, your finger should be ready, whether it's manual or whether it's electronic, to be pushing those buttons or moving the gear, the brake lever across to change gears. I see people with their hands well away from the brake levers and their gear levers, so if they want to change gears, they've got to move position again. And, you know, imagine if you're on an undulating course where you're trying to stay in the power ranges, you're trying to stay in the cadence ranges that's been asked of your particular session. You just, you're going to be forever moving your hands backwards and forwards rather than having the hand in the one spot and just using your fingers. And I think that would be the one last thing that I see a lot of people doing when I'm riding around them in bunches. And when I see photos, I see people with their hands well away from where they should be.

That's a great way to finish. It's been a big episode again, but we really hope we can get this message across that this is a very underutilized skill and can really help your cycling. So that's it for this episode. As always, we hope you've enjoyed it and you can join us on the next episode where we'll do another case study breaking down someone's specific athletes race improvement, which we're really excited about, as always. If you'd like to get coached by us, you can go to our website, TravellerCoaching.com we have a guarantee that if your FTP doesn't improve in the first block of training, the first four to six weeks of training, I think our guarantee actually says eight weeks of training, you get your money back. The coaching's on us. That's how confident we are that we can help improve your FTP and improve your bike performance. That's it from us. We'll see you on the next episode. It.