Tell me about cadence

[Kitsune06]

I'm going to make a motor analogy, but bear with me. Cadence is directly comparable to the RPMs in your car. High cadence is like not shifting right away into the next highest gear. Sure you hear the engine wind up, but many engines function better at higher RPMs because you're handling force in little bites instead of mashing hard. If you shift too soon, you might see your tach around 1k RPMs and hear/feel the car struggle a bit, if you don't 'kill' it and have it shut off on you.

The key is to find a gear that allows you to feel stable and still take just little, manageable bites of the force required to get where you're going instead of a) going to a gear too high and wobbling or b) standing and mashing.

I still don't always find that middle ground, I'm way, way too prone to the stand-and-mash... but I'm working on it.

This site might explain more and in a better way.
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/touring/gears.htm

Also, as I understand it, the keys to higher cadence can come from spinning classes but also from a proper fit to your bike. If your hips are wobbling from side to side because your saddle's too high, you will go all over the place at high cadence. If you let your core relax too much so when you really start spinning, your center of balance deviates from where it should align with the bike, you'll wobble.

like I said, I'm still working on this, though. I'm naturally a sprinter, would prefer to do something a few times w/ a lot of force than endurance anything but maybe I can retrain myself.