cadence importance

[VeloVT]

A good exercise to get stronger... On a long flat stretch, start out in a pretty easy, comfortable gear with a cadence between 90-100. Then shift up a gear, and try to bring your cadence up to the same level. Keep doing this (shifting up a gear without dropping your cadence) until you're pooped and then shift back down to the comfortable gear (you'll probably find that all of the sudden you're spinning over 100 in that gear for a few miles).

When I first started riding I didn't have any sense of cadence, and I also was really bad at shifting. I would ride for miles without shifting. In a few months I bought a computer with cadence, and not only did it get my cadence up pretty quickly, it also improved my shifting hugely. I'm now used to riding with a high cadence, and have a computer on my commuter bike that doesn't have cadence. But when I got a trainer last month and got back on my road bike after a winter on only the commuter, I find my cadence hasn't suffered from riding a lot without looking at the numbers. Once you've trained your legs to feel comfortable spinning faster, it seems they remember. I'm sure that everyone is different, and naturally may feel comfortable at a different cadence... But I do think the computer made me much more efficient.