Your cadence is how many times your legs complete a full revolution per minute. Most cyclists settle somewhere between 80 and 95 RPM. Some grind big gears at 65. Some spin like a sewing machine at 110.
And almost everyone has been told at some point that spinning faster is better.
It isn't that simple.
Where the high-cadence myth came from
Lance Armstrong rode at 100+ RPM. His coaching team built a specific theory around it: high cadence shifts the muscular workload to the cardiovascular system, which recovers faster between efforts than fatigued leg muscles do. If your legs aren't grinding out force on every stroke, the thinking goes, you'll hold up better over 5 hours in the mountains.
This got filtered through cycling culture and turned into a rule: spin high cadence and you'll go faster.
But Lance's physiology isn't yours. He had a cardiac output that very few humans can match, which meant his cardiovascular system could absorb a high-cadence workload without becoming the limiting factor. For most riders, the math works out differently.
What cadence actually affects
Think about generating the same power output at two different cadences. Say you're riding at 250W.
At 70 RPM, you're pushing a bigger gear with more force per stroke but fewer strokes per minute. Your muscles work harder. Your cardiovascular system works relatively less.
At 100 RPM, you're in a smaller gear with less force per stroke but way more strokes per minute. Your muscles work less per stroke but your cardiovascular system works harder to sustain it.
Same power. Different systems under load.
Which is more efficient depends on you specifically. Riders with strong legs and good muscular endurance (bigger riders, former strength athletes, or riders with limited aerobic capacity) are often more efficient at lower cadences. Those with well-developed aerobic systems and lighter muscle mass tend to do better spinning higher.
There isn't a universal "correct" cadence. There's a cadence that works for you.
What the research actually says
Studies on this have been running for decades. The consistent finding is that recreational cyclists self-select cadences lower than what's metabolically optimal, while elite cyclists tend to self-select cadences closer to their actual optimum.
But "metabolically optimal" is tricky. Studies measuring oxygen consumption often find that 60-70 RPM is more oxygen-efficient than 90-100 RPM for many riders. Your heart and lungs work less hard at the lower cadence to produce the same power.
That sounds like lower cadence wins. Except.
The reason elite cyclists ride at 90-95 RPM isn't because it's more oxygen-efficient. It's because it's more durable. Your leg muscles fatigue. At high power outputs sustained over hours, the force per pedal stroke at 70 RPM is significant, and muscle fatigue accumulates faster than it does at 90 RPM with lighter force per stroke.
The practical conclusion: for short efforts where muscle fatigue isn't a concern, lower cadence can be more efficient. For long efforts at sustained power, higher cadence preserves your legs. Most road cycling involves long sustained efforts, which is why 85-95 RPM is the general recommendation.
Cadence for different situations
This isn't a one-number thing. Your optimal cadence changes based on what you're doing.
Climbing. Some riders instinctively drop cadence on a climb. Grinding a big gear up a mountain works, but it destroys your legs if you do it for 45 minutes. Most coaches recommend maintaining 75-85 RPM on long climbs rather than mashing. If your cadence drops below 70 on a sustained effort, you'll feel it later in the ride. Not immediately. Later, when it really hurts.
Sprinting. Short maximal efforts are different. Cadence during a sprint can reach 110-130 RPM and that's fine because the duration is short. Sprint technique involves winding up cadence early, so you're already spinning fast when peak power is required. If you're a sprinter, training specifically at high cadences helps your neuromuscular system fire fast enough to produce peak power at 120 RPM.
Zone 2 endurance rides. Somewhere in the 85-95 range is fine for most riders. Staying below 75 RPM for hours at a time puts a lot of repetitive force through your knees, which can become an issue. If you're doing long Zone 2 endurance rides, staying above 80 RPM is a reasonable baseline.
[Threshold intervals](/blog/how-to-build-ftp). When you're doing sustained efforts at or near FTP, most riders do well at 85-95 RPM. Too low adds muscular fatigue. Too high adds cardiovascular stress. The middle keeps both systems working together without either giving out first.
Does cadence change your power output?
Not directly. Power is force times velocity. You can produce the same power with high force at low cadence or low force at high cadence. Your power meter doesn't care which way you're doing it.
What cadence affects is how long you can sustain a given power output, and which systems get exhausted first. That indirectly shapes your FTP over time because the adaptations you build depend on which systems you're stressing.
Riders who grind at 65-70 RPM often feel like their legs are strong but their lungs never limit them. That's a sign the cardiovascular system isn't being challenged at their habitual cadence. Bumping to 85-90 RPM can reveal that the aerobic system is actually the limiter. Useful information, even if it's humbling.
Should you change yours?
If you've been riding at 65-70 RPM for years, spinning at 95 RPM will feel weird and less efficient at first. Your neuromuscular system hasn't adapted to it. Give it 6-8 weeks of deliberate cadence work before deciding whether it helps.
Specific drills that work:
High-cadence spins. 3-5 minutes at 100-110 RPM at low resistance. Zone 1-2 effort. Focus on smooth, round pedaling, not mashing down through the stroke. Do this as part of a warmup 3-4 days a week. It'll feel chaotic at first. That's normal.
Cadence pyramids. 2 minutes at 80 RPM, 2 minutes at 90, 2 minutes at 100, 2 minutes at 90, 2 minutes at 80. Teaches cadence control across a range without drilling one speed over and over.
One-leg drills. Pedal with one leg for 30-60 second intervals, other foot resting on a trainer peg or the stationary leg just going along for the ride. Exposes dead spots in your pedal stroke that are invisible at low cadence but obvious when you try to spin smoothly at 95+.
Don't try to change your cadence during hard intervals. Change it on easy rides first. When 90 RPM feels natural on a Zone 2 ride, then start experimenting with it during structured sessions.
Cadence and heart rate
Raise your cadence and your heart rate rises slightly, even at the same power output. This is expected. You're shifting work to the cardiovascular system. Don't interpret it as harder training.
This is one of the reasons training with power matters for cadence work. If you're doing cadence drills and only watching heart rate, a higher heart rate at a lower power looks like a harder session when it might be the same or less muscular stress. Power keeps you honest.
The mistake that actually hurts riders
Mashing big gears on long climbs.
Cadence at 55-65 RPM on a 40-minute climb while grinding the biggest gear that keeps you moving. It feels powerful. It's also how you blow your legs for the final hour of a ride.
The force per pedal stroke at 60 RPM is roughly 50% higher than at 90 RPM for the same power. Over 40 minutes that's thousands of extra high-force contractions. Your legs can't sustain that without serious fatigue accumulating, and it tends to hit you all at once somewhere around the last third of a hard ride.
If climbing strength is a weakness, strength training for cyclists fixes it better than grinding bigger gears. Building quad and hamstring strength in the gym lets you produce more force at reasonable cadence, instead of grinding more force at brutal cadence.
What smooth actually looks like
A smooth pedal stroke has no hip bounce. No dead spot at the top of the stroke where your foot just falls through. Your weight isn't rocking side to side. At 90 RPM it should feel controlled, not frantic.
It takes time to develop, especially if you've been a grinder for years. But fixing technique and cadence often produces more gains than chasing a new training protocol. It's a fundamental that most riders skip past because it's less exciting than intervals.
If you're using Nivvy, the AI coach can help slot cadence drills into your existing schedule without disrupting your Training Score. They fit naturally into Zone 1-2 days, which is exactly where this kind of work should go.
Train at 85-95 RPM on your easy rides for 6-8 weeks. Check how your legs feel at the end of long rides compared to before. That comparison will tell you more than any study will.