newbee simple question.. Max Caden.. Yours

I dont know what mine is but i think i remember hearing that the top track riders can spin up to 280rpm. thats pretty damn fast!

i keep my cadence 90+ on the flats, max at around 130 so most time 90-110.
on climbs 78-90. a VGS work out my cadence may drop as low as 35 rpm!

Roche said:

I dont know what mine is but i think i remember hearing that the top track riders can spin up to 280rpm. thats pretty damn fast!

All I can think there is OUCH!!! Cant imagine what sort of wear and tear that causes on your body and bike!!

zaskar said:

i keep my cadence 90+ on the flats, max at around 130 so most time 90-110.
on climbs 78-90. a VGS work out my cadence may drop as low as 35 rpm!

That sounds more along the line of me. I am doing Tri Training so don't have the expert cycling coach and peers etc so I is hard to know what the norm is or what you should be looking at. Still can't get over the 280rpm though!!

Roche said:

I dont know what mine is but i think i remember hearing that the top track riders can spin up to 280rpm. thats pretty damn fast!

I think I heard 180, not 280. 280 would be 4.6 revs per second. Try tapping that out on your desk, and remember that we're talking two pedals per rev. To put it another way, it would be one single crank at just over .108 seconds. Unless the cranks were really short, I don't think that's possible. Anyone with experience want to chime in here?

jpwkeeper said:

I think I heard 180, not 280. 280 would be 4.6 revs per second. Try tapping that out on your desk, and remember that we're talking two pedals per rev. To put it another way, it would be one single crank at just over .108 seconds. Unless the cranks were really short, I don't think that's possible. Anyone with experience want to chime in here?

its very possible. i have done 240rpms on the trainer, and i am not an elite track sprinter. i do workouts where i sprint in the 39x19 until i max out, on a flat road. i hit 190s, which is at 31mph, so that is while putting out 600-700watts. (i am training to race on the track)
i ride 175cm cranks. after doing a bunch of these efforts i start feeling sick at the end of the sprint.
i have heard guys talk about 300rpms, but that is getting close to more fiction than fact.

200rpms is not all that fast, it's just about training your legs to fire really quickly.

elite match sprinters ride at 160rpms once up to speed during the 200 meter sprint. thats at 43-45mph, and probally while producing 2 horsepower in the saddle.