"Keep it around 90." It gets said on almost every club ride, usually at the foot of the first climb, usually by someone who is already out of the saddle. On the flat it is sound advice. On a long climb the riders who do this for a living do something else. In the study by Lucia, Hoyos and Chicharro, Grand Tour professionals averaged about 89 rpm on flat stages and 92 rpm in time trials, but only about 71 rpm on long mountain climbs.
So which number is right? Runners have the same argument about 180 steps per minute. This article takes the cadence questions riders and runners actually ask, one at a time. Each gets a one-sentence answer first, then the numbers behind it. All of the numbers come from the Cycling Cadence Calculator, the Bike Gear Calculator and the Running Cadence Calculator. Unless a section says otherwise, the bike runs on 700x25C tires with a 2,105 mm circumference and speeds are in mph.
How many rpm does 20 mph take?
Answer: in a 50x17 gear, 87 rpm. In a different gear, a different number, which is why a cadence on its own says very little.
Cadence and speed are tied together by the gear. A 50-tooth chainring driving a 17-tooth cog has a ratio of 2.94: each turn of the cranks turns the rear wheel almost three times. On a 700x25C tire that is 6.19 m of road per pedal stroke, or 77.6 gear inches if you use the older American and British unit. Ride at 20 mph in that gear and your legs go round 87 times a minute.
The target cadence field is the useful part. Type 90 and the calculator says you would need a cog of 17.7 teeth, which does not exist, and names the two that do: the 17 gives 87 rpm and the 18 gives 92 rpm. The table under the result runs the same gear across cadences: 13.8 mph at 60 rpm, 20.8 mph at 90 rpm and 23.1 mph at 100 rpm. Same bike, same gear, almost 10 mph between a slow and a quick pedal stroke.
That is the first thing to keep in mind about cadence: it is half a sentence. The other half is the gear you are in.
What speed does 90 rpm give on a road bike?
Answer: on a 50/34 crankset with an 11-28 cassette, anything from 8.6 mph to 32.1 mph, depending on the gear.
The easiest gear on that bike, the 34-tooth ring with the 28-tooth cog, moves 2.56 m per crank turn. The hardest, 50x11, moves 9.57 m. At the same 90 rpm the first is a crawl up a steep ramp and the second is a sprint down the other side. The ratio between the two is the gear range, 374% for this setup: the hardest gear is 3.74 times as long as the easiest. The 50/34 with an 11-28 cassette page lists all 22 combinations in gear inches and in mph.
Tire size matters much less than people expect. In a 50x17 at 90 rpm, a 700x23C tire gives 20.7 mph and a 700x32C tire 21.3 mph, about 0.6 mph apart, because the circumference only grows from 2,096 to 2,155 mm. A small wheel is a different matter: on a 20x1.75 folding bike wheel the same gear and the same cadence give 15.0 mph. That gap is why small-wheeled bikes come with large chainrings.
Why do pros climb at 71 rpm?
Answer: part of the reason is plain gearing: on a steep climb the bike runs out of easy gears before the rider runs out of cadence.
Take a climb steep enough that you are down to 6 mph. On a 50/34 with an 11-28 you are already in the easiest gear, 34x28, and the calculator puts your cadence at 63 rpm. To turn the cranks at 90 rpm at that speed on the 34-tooth ring, you would need a cog of 40 teeth. The biggest road cassette on the calculator's list stops at 34.
Flip the question around and type the pros' climbing cadence into the speed mode: 71 rpm in a 34x28 is 6.8 mph. Riders who climb faster get more cadence out of the same gear. Riders who climb slower get less, whatever their club mates tell them on the way up.
The Lucia study measured what professional riders did. It did not say what anyone should do. Read the bands in the cadence calculator the same way: "Low" means below what pros hold on the flat, not wrong. If your climbing cadence sits in the 60s and you would like it higher, there are two levers: a bigger cog at the back or a smaller ring at the front. The next two sections put numbers on both.
How much easier does a bigger cassette make a climb?
Answer: swapping an 11-28 for an 11-32 on a 50/34 makes the easiest gear 12.5% easier, so a 6 mph climb goes from 63 rpm to 72 rpm. The price is bigger jumps between cogs.
The screenshot is the 11-28 vs 11-32 cassette comparison. The easiest gear drops from 32.0 to 28.0 gear inches, the top speed at 90 rpm stays at 32.1 mph because both cassettes start with an 11, and the gear range climbs from 374% to 428%. What you give up is in the last row. The biggest step between neighboring cogs grows from 13.3% to 14.3%, because an 11-speed cassette has to cover four more teeth with the same eleven cogs. The 11-32 has no 15-tooth cog at all: it goes straight from 14 to 16.
Here are five common 11-speed cassettes on the same 50/34 crankset. Each linked cassette opens the calculator with that setup filled in.
| Cassette | Easiest gear | Cadence at 6 mph | Gear range | Biggest jump |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12-25 | 35.9 in | 56 rpm | 306% | 10.5% |
| 11-28 | 32.0 in | 63 rpm | 374% | 13.3% |
| 11-30 | 29.9 in | 67 rpm | 401% | 14.3% |
| 11-32 | 28.0 in | 72 rpm | 428% | 14.3% |
| 11-34 | 26.4 in | 76 rpm | 455% | 18.2% |
Two things stand out. Every extra pair of teeth at the bottom buys about four or five rpm on a steep climb. And the 11-34 pays for its range at the other end of the cassette: it drops the 12-tooth cog, so the jump from 11 to 13 is 18.2%, the biggest step on any of the five cassettes.
Each swap, in one line
- 11-28 vs 11-30: the easiest gear is 6.7% easier, 67 instead of 63 rpm at 6 mph.
- 11-28 vs 11-34: 17.6% easier, 76 instead of 63 rpm. The biggest single change on the list.
- 11-30 vs 11-32: 6.3% easier, 72 instead of 67 rpm.
- 11-30 vs 11-34: 11.8% easier, 76 instead of 67 rpm.
- 11-32 vs 11-34: 5.9% easier, 76 instead of 72 rpm. The smallest gain for the biggest jump.
- 12-25 vs 11-28: 10.7% easier, 63 instead of 56 rpm, and here the top end moves too: the 11 makes the hardest gear 9.1% bigger, worth 2.7 mph at 90 rpm.
Compact, mid-compact or standard crankset?
Answer: with an 11-28, going from a 50/34 to a 53/39 adds 1.9 mph at the top at 90 rpm and takes 8 rpm away on a 6 mph climb.
The front of the drivetrain moves both ends of the range at once. A bigger big ring raises the top speed; a bigger small ring makes the climbing gear harder. The table puts the three common road cranksets side by side, all with the same 11-28 cassette.
| Crankset | Hardest gear at 90 rpm | Easiest gear at 90 rpm | Cadence at 6 mph | Gear range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50/34 (compact) | 32.1 mph | 8.6 mph | 63 rpm | 374% |
| 52/36 (mid-compact) | 33.4 mph | 9.1 mph | 59 rpm | 368% |
| 53/39 (standard) | 34.0 mph | 9.8 mph | 55 rpm | 346% |
Read the top-speed column carefully. At 90 rpm, 32.1 mph in a 50x11 is already a fast descent or a sprint. The extra 1.9 mph of a 53x11 matters only if you spend real time at those speeds. On the climbing side, 55 rpm at 6 mph is 16 rpm below the pros' average on long climbs.
The three pairings, in one line each
- 50/34 vs 52/36: the easiest gear is 5.9% harder, 59 instead of 63 rpm at 6 mph; the hardest gear is 4.0% bigger, worth 1.3 mph.
- 50/34 vs 53/39: 14.7% harder at the bottom, 55 instead of 63 rpm; 6.0% bigger at the top.
- 52/36 vs 53/39: 8.3% harder at the bottom, 55 instead of 59 rpm; only 1.9% bigger at the top.
Mixing the two levers
Crankset and cassette can cancel each other out. A mid-compact with a wider cassette climbs better than a compact with a narrow one: a 52/36 with an 11-32 turns a 6 mph climb at 68 rpm, against 63 rpm on a 50/34 with an 11-28, and still keeps the bigger top gear. The same idea works for a standard crankset: a 53/39 with an 11-30 climbs at 59 rpm, the same as a 52/36 with an 11-28. The 52/36 with an 11-30 lands in between at 64 rpm, and a compact with the widest cassette, the 50/34 with an 11-34, reaches 76 rpm.
Gear range tells you how much of the road a drivetrain covers. The cadence at a slow climbing speed tells you whether the bottom of that range is low enough for your hills. Check both before buying anything.
Is 180 steps per minute the right running cadence?
Answer: no. It is roughly the average of elite runners, and even they spread far around it.
In the study by Burns and colleagues, runners at a 100 km world championship averaged 182 steps per minute, but individual runners ranged from 155 to 203. Cadence was higher when they ran faster and lower in taller runners. An average with a range almost 50 steps wide is a description, not a prescription.
What the research does support is a small, gradual change. Heiderscheit and colleagues had 45 recreational runners raise their cadence by 5 to 10% at the same speed. The load on the knee went down, and at +10% the load on the hip went down as well. For a runner at a 9:00 mile with a 40-inch step, that means going from 176 to 185 steps per minute (+5%) with a 38.1 in step, or to 194 (+10%) with a 36.4 in step. Nothing about that runner's cadence is wrong at 176. The study only shows what a 5 to 10% change does.
Pace matters as much as the runner. Holding 180 steps per minute means a very different step at different speeds:
| Pace | Speed | Step length at 180 spm | Steps per mile |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7:00 min/mi | 8.6 mph | 50.3 in | 1,260 |
| 8:00 min/mi | 7.5 mph | 44.0 in | 1,440 |
| 9:00 min/mi | 6.7 mph | 39.1 in | 1,620 |
| 10:00 min/mi | 6.0 mph | 35.2 in | 1,800 |
| 11:00 min/mi | 5.5 mph | 32.0 in | 1,980 |
At an easy 11:00 mile, 180 steps per minute means a step of only 32 inches; at a 7:00 mile the same cadence needs a step of more than 50 inches. The Burns data point the same way: cadence rises with speed. A single number for every pace ignores that.
How do you find your cadence without a sensor?
Answer: count. Thirty seconds of counting one foot, or one pedal, is enough.
On foot, count every time your right foot lands for 30 seconds and multiply by four. 44 right-foot landings is 176 steps per minute. The Running Cadence Calculator's count mode does this sum for 15, 30 or 60 seconds and either one foot or both. Add your pace and it also gives the step length: 176 steps per minute at a 9:00 mile is a 40.0 in step.
On the bike, counting works the same way: count one knee coming up for 30 seconds and double it. If you know your speed and your gear, you do not need to count at all. Type 20 mph and a 50x17 into the Cycling Cadence Calculator and it tells you 87 rpm. A speed sensor and a look at which cog you are in will give you your cadence on any ride.
So what cadence should you ride and run at?
Answer: the one that suits the speed, the slope and the gear, within ranges that riders and runners actually use.
The numbers in this article point to a few working rules:
- Always give a cadence together with a gear or a pace. 90 rpm means 8.6 mph or 32.1 mph, depending on the cog.
- Expect lower cadence on climbs. Grand Tour professionals averaged about 71 rpm on long climbs, and gearing limits you even more than it limits them.
- Fix a grinding climb at the back first. A bigger cassette changes only the easy end, and it costs you smoothness in the middle.
- Change the crankset only for the top end. A 53/39 buys under 2 mph at 90 rpm and costs 8 rpm on a 6 mph climb.
- Treat 180 steps per minute as an average, not a target. If you change your running cadence, change it by 5 to 10%, gradually, and talk to a physical therapist if something hurts.
Tools discussed in this article
More sports tools
- Cycling Power Calculator: watts for a speed, or the speed your watts give
- FTP Calculator: functional threshold power from a 20-minute, ramp or 8-minute test
- Power Zones Calculator: seven training zones in watts from your FTP
- VDOT Calculator: training paces from a running race
- Half Marathon Splits Calculator: mile splits for an even or negative split
- Tanda Marathon Predictor: a marathon time from eight weeks of training
- Beep Test Calculator: VO2max from the 20 m shuttle run
- Treadmill Calculator: treadmill speed and incline as an outdoor pace
- Sweat Rate Calculator: how much to drink on a long ride or run
- Running Pace Calculator: pace, time and distance for any run
- Training Heart Rate Calculator: heart rate zones from maximum or resting heart rate
- Calories Burned Calculator: energy used by a ride or a run from METs and time
- Average Speed Calculator: speed from distance and time for any ride
- Speed Converter: mph, km/h and meters per second