I am rarely out of the big ring on road…..but then mine is a 46 🙂

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No, you obviously don’t know what a hill is. I’ve done events round here with sustained 25% climbs – I’d love to see you try that in your 50!

Live in Scotland, so yeah, do know what a hill is. Your train of thought is if i cant do it no one can which is unscientific at the least

Tried 39/53 and hated it. Too big a jump. All the TDF fanboy “have a go”-heroes loved it though.

Seems they use 34/50 these days though 😉

Your train of thought is if i cant do it no one can

So not only are you a super hero, you’re also a mind reader?

radoggair – are you Graeme Obree?

Now he rides a proper man’s gear.

Live in Scotland, so yeah, do know what a hill is. Your train of thought is if i cant do it no one can which is unscientific at the least

Well, I think his train of thought is that if the pros putting out 6W/kg often use a 39 on hills, then there is something utterly extraordinary about you if you never need a gear lower than 50*25, or even 50*27. Or you’re just grinding silly low cadences for the hell of it, and you’d go a lot quicker if you just shifted down. But only you know what gears you use/need, and this is teh internets, so I’ll shut up.

radoggair might be better at getting up the hills, but ianpv is better at mindreading.

Well, I think his train of thought is that if the pros putting out 6W/kg often use a 39 on hills, then there is something utterly extraordinary about you if you never need a gear lower than 50*25, or even 50*27. Or you’re just grinding silly low cadences for the hell of it, and you’d go a lot quicker if you just shifted down. But only you know what gears you use/need, and this is teh internets, so I’ll shut up.

try 50/23, but then maybe i’m just an undiscovered talent who prefers mtb’s to road and uses road for training purposes only. Or maybe there’s those that ‘often use a 39 on hills’, and thos that ‘often use a 50 on hills’ 😛

Thing is, if the pros use the small ring then there most definitely is a use for it. If you’re grinding at a very slow cadence you are much less efficient, even if that is your style. Some pros turn a big gear, but there are limits.

Well I suppose if you like pedalling at 30rpm 🙄

have to say having ridden with greig he can climb like a rabbit !

i think his tongue is firmly in cheek here mind …..

I would change the cassette for 12-27

or even a 32 if he has an injury or can’t improve with regular traiing-not everyones cup of tea.

(It would save him from buying shifters and and mechs)

One friend uses a 11-34 on his steel roadie tourer-he flies on road and I have to chase him on some hills!

(I use 53/39 and 11-25 cassette and it can be tough uphill-I’m 9kg over my roadie weight. Stunned me when I started hill riding again)

If you’re grinding at a very slow cadence you are much less efficient, even if that is your style. Some pros turn a big gear, but there are limits.

How can this be? It’s not like twice the cadence is half the energy, you still need to turn with half the force twice as many times to cover the same ground.

Spinning at 100rpm with no force at all is a lot of effort compared to a leisurely 60rpm with no resistance…or even some.

either way, i’m a biking god who is quicker than the pro’s

Spinning at 100rpm with no force at all is a lot of effort compared to a leisurely 60rpm with no resistance…or even some

leg muscles vs heart and lungs …

dont know about you but i find my lungs and heart still have plenty to give when im grinding away … i find i can ride for longer spinning the climbs at a high cadence , less lactate build up etc ….

there is a reason alot of sucessful climbers spin and its not just cause lance did it … there were others long before him !

my inner ring used to be a 42 on the roadie … 42:25 was interesting as a lowest gear on the cairn o mount.

Spinning at 100rpm with no force at all is a lot of effort compared to a leisurely 60rpm with no resistance…or even some.

But then we’re not talking about the difference between 100rpm and 60rpm here. 60rpm in biking god’s 50/23 is over 10mph, and I’d like to see him manage that up a 25% climb!

Nor are we talking about low levels of resistance. On a 25% climb, that 50/23 requires more than full bodyweight force through the pedals the whole way round the pedal rotation (ie including the bits where you can’t stand on the pedals to force it round).

Oh and whilst I’m doing some calcs, for a typical 75kg rider and bike, 60rpm in 50/23 up a 25% climb requires 832W just to lift the load against gravity, ignoring any losses in the drivetrain etc.

Pedalling faster in a lower gear is more efficient to a point. Your legs are moving faster but the muscles are straining less. By your logic it would be as easy to move an articulated lorry a few hundred metres than it would to ride up the Gap.

I have a theory that the larger one’s build the lower one’s ideal cadence would be, since the losses involved in pedalling faster come from the changing direction of your legs as they move up and down, which is more effort if they are physically larger. But that is just a theory that needs testing.

Grinding up climbs in huge gears is not efficient. If you have such bad habits then you should listen to those who study these things and break them. I used to pedal everywhere at 60rpm, then I tried pedalling faster. It felt weird at first but surprise surprise, the experts were right and now I average 80 on most road rides.

Anyway back on topic – I love triples, you can pick the right gear for the effort you want to put in on the climb. I hate compact because there’s too big of a jump between the rings. Most mid-low end bikes afaik come with a triple shifter and the stops on the mech have been wound in. Although mine came this way with a standard double on it, it had a double mech not a triple, which was annoying. £20 sorted that out tho, but then I am running 105 🙂

im as guilty as the next man of being a masher …..last year

spent all winter working on my cadence using a strada cadence computer and now average 90-100.

took a while and i picked up some new injurys along the way … its not an easy transition !