Not sure If I am going to get a response, the discussions here seem very dated. I have the Wahoo Kickr and have the hearmonitor and notice that I can connect the cadence data collector. I do not see the benefit of knowing my cadence since I can see my watt consumption. It does not seem relevant, consider going up hills my wattage will go up and my cadence will go down. The wattage seems like the true indicator of energy use, sorry for the dumb question just curious.
Your cadence is very important (to most people anyway).
In general, the higher your cadence, the more pressure you put on your cardio vascular system (heart and lungs) and the less pressure you put on your muscles. If you go to high, you tend to run out of breath.
As you lower your cadence, you ease the pressure on your heart/lungs and shift it towards your muscles. If you go to low, you tend to fatigue your muscles too much (and potentially injure your knees as well).
There is a line of efficiency - which varies for each person - where you are balancing the pressure just right and getting the most bang for your exertion buck.
Most people (again, generalizing) find that a cadence between 80 and 90 is the sweet spot.
You change gears to regulate the rpms and keep yourself in the sweet spot.
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Welcome to the forums! I’m Haziel from Zwift, and I genuinely appreciate you reaching out with your question about cadence.
It’s totally understandable to want clarity on this topic. To put it simply, power is determined by the force (or torque) you’re applying to the pedals, combined with the speed at which you’re applying that force (cadence). So, if you’re cruising at 20 mph but shift from 80 rpm to 120 rpm, the power output stays the same. This is because your torque decreases as you increase your cadence.
Knowing your cadence helps you to confirm the speed that you are using, as it was mentioned by Tom, you can know about the health of your cardiovascular system by knowing about the cadence.
I hope this helps you to picture the importance of cadence.If you have any more questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Your cycling journey matters, and I’m here to help!
If everyone believes that cadence is important, why doesnt anyone at Zwift or Wahoo seem concerned when cadence reads jump significantly?
Mine goes from 79 to 112 to 122, to 76 all within a matter of seconds. It makes no sense and its hard for me to follow the on-screen instructions about riding at a ceetain cadence for a certain time if i cant GET to that cadence & stay within a few numbers of it.
Ive got the right android version. I have a wifi extender in the room with the trainer. There are no firmware updates needed on the trainer (which is brand new as of 2 weeks ago) and i have the latest version of zwift installed.
I’m about to stop using zwift as it doesnt work for me and is hust frustrating to ride
Despite your updated system, that seems like a you thing. I don’t see that kind of behavior and I don’t see many people complaining about it.
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What trainer are you using? I have had an issue similar to what you are describing with a Tacx 2 and that was to do with the trainer having a physical cadence sensor and my bike/cranks not actually fully passing the sensor and it would give erratic and generally wrong cadence info.
As for it not being important, your cadence doesn’t affect your in game speed, but if you are following workouts trying to hit specific cadence targets it is very frustrating.
Great thanks, I am using the Kickr and will order the cadence sensor and give it a go, I know when I do workouts the RPM are requested at the very least it would helpful. Thanks again for the response, as I continue to drink this kool-Aid I am finding it quite addictive!}
I have the kickr core c8c1