Originally Posted by gudujarlson .
My guess is that riders just navigate to their optimal cadence during normal riding and that their optimal cadence changes with fitness changes. Just because you can "comfortably" ride at a very high cadence does not make that cadence more efficient. I haven't read anything that stated otherwise, but I have not looked very deeply into the issue. Perhaps Dave or Frost have some more advanced ideas.
I wasn't paying attention then, but it sounds like Lance Armstrong started a high cadence fad back in the day and that explains a lot of this heart felt sense that higher cadence is king.
CAVEAT: High cadence is probably more important to those riders that ride bikes with no gears: track and bmx. They have to peddle faster to go faster. However, I did read something recently that suggested that track sprinters have recently started using bigger gears and lower cadences than they used to.
I would say that real beginners spin too slow when they pedal in their "most efficient" zone. and that is natural since at 15 mph probably 75 RPM is the most efficient cadence and you are wasting energy when you pedal at 100. however if you ride 25+ mph probably 100 is the most efficient cadence. I'm not sure but I think there is a cadence velocity curve which says that a low speed/power low cadence is most efficient and at high speed high power is efficient. that is why sprinters go 120 and in the mountains riders go like 75.
any time trialist on the road uses a 100 cadence (or 95 to 105

) because this is just the best cadence I think (I can't explain why but noone is riding 30 mph with an 85 cadence). so getting comfortable with those cadences early when they can not be used efficiently already might be a good idea even if you are not really being efficient.
when I re started cycling about 2 months ago I forced myself to pedal 100 and I really got not forward and was gassed after 2 miles. so I corrected myself down to 90 and did that for some time and now I pedal like 95 when I ride near my threshold. sometimes you have to force yourself to do something.