Are you a spinner or a masher?

Like a lot of things, it depends.

In a crit, racing track, during a fast and punchy road race I'll spin pretty fast as rapid acceleration to cover gaps, launch attacks, coming out of corners and such is much easier when relying on leg speed instead of brute force. But in time trials or when I'm clear of the group bridging or soloing then I tend to slam pretty big gears. My best time trials in both time and power terms happen when I roll around 80 rpm but my average cadence in a crit is usually around 105 to 110 with bursts much higher than that along the way.

-Dave

My cadence averages around 95 in L2, 100 in L4, and 105 in L5+. The only times it drops below 95ish are when recovering and climbing steep slopes. As I've gotten fitter over the last 3 years my cadence has risen a little. Spinning at 80 rpm in TT like Dave would feel really weird to me. It confuses me why I prefer relatively high cadence, because nothing else in my observable physiology suggests to me it would be optimal. I have large, strong, slow legs and have never been able to sprint or jump well, but I've always been able to leg press 450 pounds without specific training.

Spinner, thank you.

85-90 RPM seems to be my sweet spot, though on a multi-day tour with hills, that number may drop to around 80 as some leg fatigue builds. So I guess I'm a "spinner".

I am a spinner, it's just that I spin pretty slow on 22 percent grades.🙂

Both! I ride a 16-40 km TT at ~95 rpm, shorter TT like VO2max efforts average ~100+. On steepish hill climbs I'm pretty happy in cadences as low as the 40's, on really steep (18-20%) grades (when I'm over geared, usually run a 39/25 or 23) where the cadence gets to the 30's I really lose the ability to produce power. I knocked ~ 5 minutes off my time up a favorite and very steep climb by putting on an 11-28, I think it was Dave who told me once that we can generate power at a pretty wide variety of torque/cadence combinations, which is probably why he can race mass start events at high cadence and TT at a lower one effectively, I would add that being outside of that range has very noticeable drawbacks.