Fairly new to trainer road, and fairly new to intentional training. Albeit that I’ve cycled for many years.
I’ve noticed that my cadence is higher when I’m on the turbo doing TR sessions. It averages around 80rpm on a road bike (lower when on an MTB, my main sport), but around 90rpm when on the turbo. (A Wattbike) it averages even higher when I’m doing an interval.
Should I be trying to align these to maximise training benefits? Or doesn’t it matter too much. I’ll be intrigued on people’s opinions.
Cadence is a dependent, not an independent, variable. In this context, it depends on the ability of your indoor turbo to mimic outdoor inertial load. Most turbos can’t, some can but with a delay. What this means is that even if it can mimic the power demands of riding outside, most turbo trainers can’t mimic the inertial load, so your turbo cadence tends to be different than your outdoor cadence.
If they did ERG mode with the set point varying up and down a random amount of watts, up and down within like maybe a 20 watt maybe 30 watt range +/-, they could really better simulate ‘actual’ bike riding outdoors. I start riding outdoors and it’s always something, wind, terrain, traffic, road crossings, animals, on and on. If I had access to a velodrome and called it ‘outdoor riding’, it would be like a trainer indoors. Riding outdoors will always be weirder than riding ERG on a trainer. But cadence in ERG mode is up to you the rider, because no matter what cadence, it will try to keep that set point/demand. 75 cadence, UG, work it, work it. 200+ cadence, zippy zippy zippy, high heart rate, burn it up.
When I started on TR, my cadence was sky high, like in the 200’s. I didn’t seem to have a lower spot that I stayed in, unless it was 200+. Now, I tend to settle at 105, which is a lot more ‘normal’, and see it drift up and down 5 to 10 rpms, but it’s not as high. Not sure what changed, but it’s far more comfortable.
The high cadence carried outside with me pedaling way too much faster for what I needed to actually do. It was a great workout, but pedaling slower is so much better. Don’t know how I got into the spot where my cadence was so damn high, but am liking it so much better. It’s probably been a few years since I did the high cadence jag, so it’s possible that it’s been better for some time, but I just noticed it over the past month or so.
Try watching your cadence and adjusting as you ride.
As other athletes have mentioned, cadence doesn’t need to be your top priority during training. It’s generally best to find a cadence that feels comfortable for you. This can vary based on factors like terrain, wind, your bike’s gearing, and, of course, whether you’re riding indoors on a trainer or outside on the road.
Cadence drills (which are sometimes included in our indoor workouts) can help you adapt to higher or lower cadences than you’re used to. This can be beneficial if you expect to need power at non-ideal cadences – like climbing a steep hill at low RPMs or using higher cadences for quick accelerations or sprinting.
A cadence of around 80-90 RPM on both the road and trainer is pretty typical, though, so I wouldn’t worry too much about any small differences during your regular training rides.
