Hi, I’ve got 2 bikes which I’ve used for commuting a Btwin 500se road bike that is quick (30 mile commute) but I was getting a pain on my upper right thigh, plus I’m not a huge fan of having brakes on the drops.

Recently I’ve been using a Paddywagon 3 (16 mile commute) which has a 3 speed Sturmey Archer hub gear, I like the idea of a hub gear but it just feels very slow to accelerate and keep a good speed up.

Would putting a bigger cog on the back make it quicker, as I could ride a better cadence? Don’t want to spend too much as it might be better to sell both and by a aluminium hybrid.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

Rolling resistance – heavy tyres and thick inner tubes are robbing your efforts. Adjust the brake levers, bars on your BTwin so you can brake from the hoods?

Air resistance.

Rolling resistance

Bollocks

I’ve read if you can’t brake from the hoods your doing it wrong, I can brake from the hoods but don’t enjoy being on them in traffic or busy areas.

My bollocks aren’t that heavy! 😆

Why is the Kona so slow? Yup, it’s down to the gearing.

OR, if your Kona has flat bars (a quick Google search shows Paddywagon 3’s with drop and flat bar options) it’s down to the gearing AND air resistance/body positioning.

If you want to get faster I would suggest developing asthma or something.

I agree with doverbikes. Tyres and tubes make a huge difference.

When I changed from gator skins to schwalbe one tubeless I made huge gains.

What tyres are you running on both bikes?

My experience is that lighter wheels and tyres make a bike accelerate quicker and better tyres improve rolling resistance.

It might not be entirely logical but swapping to light wheels and skinny tyres makes a bike feel nimble.

Given the hub situation the cheaper option is to consider some cross top brake levers on the btwin, they make a big difference for urban riding imo.

Probably wind resistance if flat bar.

Also gearing. You have 3 gears so the jump between gears will probably be much bigger than on the road bike. So harder to accelerate as you’ll be in too big a gear, and harder to maintain speed as you’ll be in a sub optimal gear.

What’s a cross top brake lever? Unfortunately the gears and brake lever are combined.

Btwin has Stock wheels and Michelin pro slick tyres the kona has some stock Alex rims with schwalbe puncture proof tyres.

Never really thought about air resistance, always thought it was gearing related.

Can cross top levers be fitted with the drop bar brakes?

If Paddywagon is flat bar…
Increased aero drag on the flat and downhill
Increased mass on the uphill

Plus how you use the 3 gears. What chainring and sprocket, plus which specific SA hub?

Bollocks

I’m ignoring obvious things like position, but whilst you’ll lose a couple of % efficiency with the hub gear, heavy tyres and tubes will be 2-3x worse

IMHO you want to fiddle with the drop bar bike until it works for you

The leg pain could be the bike leaning you too far forward tipping your pelvis forward. Cheap enough to try a stem that puts the bars higher or steerer extender. You might even prefer the brakes if they are easier to reach.

You can fit crosstop brake levers in in addition to your current brake levers.

More radical put a flat bar on the bike. The big cost is new shifters but it’s not crazy money and the current shifters will sell for enough to cover the cost. On the same stem this will make the bike quite upright. But maybe that is what you want. Upright is slower though…

it just feels very slow to accelerate and keep a good speed up.

Although it feels like that how much actual difference does it make in time/average speed?

While I agree you should be able to brake when on the hoods, so you need to sort the position out so you can – I’d also second crosstop (aka chicken levers) for a commuter drop bar bike.

Purists will sneer but gives me the chance to sit up high in traffic and look around and be alert while still being able to brake. They sit in line with the drop bar cable (so will need some fitting / recabling / possibly bars rewrapped) but worth the effort.

There’s bugger all drag in a 3spd Sturmey-Archer, so the likelihood is you simply have it geared too high or have crap tyres.

Set the chainring/rearcog ratio to what you’d use on a general purpose road bike singlespeed, ie a gear you could ride all day on. That’s what your middle gear will be because that’s the direct one.

It used to be the norm to set it between 60-65 gear inches. It’s better a bit low than high because you can always find a wee bit more spin, but rarely another ounce of grunt.

(I set mine at 62″ and that’s good enough to get me around Wester Ross on century plus days)

So I’m pushing 69.17 gear inches, maybe I’ll drop a t down to 18 tooth at the rear making it 61.28. My commute is very flat so you’d think a bigger gear would be useable, on the road bike I’m generally using 50tooth to 12 tooth, which is coming out at 109.

Like the look of the chicken levers with drops.

While I agree you should be able to brake when on the hoods, so you need to sort the position out so you can

This.

Drop bar bikes can need a LOT of tweaking to get dialled in for you. And until you do, they can sometimes be hard to use. You have to remember that bike designers know what they are doing, so if something feels difficult or wrong then you should not simply put up with it – you need to adjust the setup or get something shorter/longer/wider/shallower etc.

I’ve had my road bike for over ten years, just put wider and shallower bars on. Although the reach of the bars was shorter, because the drop and drop angle was less I was able to rotate the bars back which put the hoods further away, which meant I could use a shorter stem which made it handle much better out of the saddle.

Complicated stuff! I try to make sure it’s comfortable in traffic on hoods and also good on drops.

Generally? Or once or twice a ride, on the tailwind/ downhill bits? A reasonably sedate 80 rpm at the crank will have you doing slightly over 25mph. On your commute. Over 30 miles.

My understanding is that air resistance drag increases sort of exponentially with speed. Therefore at slower touring level speeds the tyre rolling resistance dominates. R resistance only increase linearly with speed so the faster you go, the more aerodynamics feature.

This is a good website for illustrating it. Sorry if it has been posted already.

https://www.gribble.org/cycling/power_v_speed.html

Molgrips – I’ve never been the best with geometry and component sizes, the bike mags always say change the stem, get a shorter crank etc but they have these parts in their workshop I don’t nor can I afford to keep changing parts. The leg pain was on the longer commute, hopefully with the shorter distance I’ll be alright. I’ll perhaps do some more research before spending money on new parts. Why did you change the bars if it’s been good for 10 years?

Ghostlymachine – I mostly just use the 3 smallest cogs on the cassette and the Big cog at the front, my commute is along the Cambridge busway so very very flat. I’m not sure how fast I’m going as I don’t use strava etc.

Maybe I need more weetabix!

I’m not sure how fast I’m going as I don’t use strava etc.

Then the question isn’t why is my commuter bike slow, but why does it feel slow!

tbh strava would probably make you faster as it is.

Different length cranks? You might find one easier to spin

I find that my alfine hub has some squish to it under drive which compared to derailleur setups makes it feel soft and dull. It’s like the gears bind into each other and then dig in a little more under drive so you loose the feel of direct transfer of power.

Its built like a tank, rolls really well and smoothly, but it’s heavy … I just think the combination adds up a dulled response compared to a lighter bike.

It’s all a compromise. I’m happy to trade some of the lightness for reliability / simplicity. The straight chain line of a geared hub is a god send for my commute of grit and grime.

Ribble will do you 65 degree stem for £15 or a variable angle for stem for £12

I can’t image there are many cheaper things to try as a change. You can also sell any stems that you don’t use.

As has been said 50X12T is pushing 25mph at a pretty modest 80rpm cadance. If you really are that fast for the bulk of your 30 mile commute then fair play and good luck to you. For reference ‘going under the hour’ in a 25 mile time trail is the mark of a good club roadman – the coming of age as a time trailer if you will. Most will be using a proper TT bike with aero wheels and a skinsuit on to get under the mark.There is a reason you won’t see many folk with sturmey archer geared flat barred bikes on the start line of a TT waiting for a push off – aerodynamics of the rider position being the main one.. The number of folk that could take a flat barred shed like the a paddywagon under the hour is vanishingly small.

If you want to commute at the speeds you claim you are, pan flat roads or not, you need the right tool for the job and clearly your road bike is the better of the two.

Stock wheels on the PW are bulletproof but heavy. Tyres were also terrible. Mine is heavily customised, but I’ve ridden it fixed for 300km in the past three days in a pretty big gear 3:1. It’s running Schwalbe One tyres and latex inner tubes. Acceleration, is quite sensitive to wheel/tyre mass, but once up to speed, then it’s rolling resistance and aero.

If you can’t ride comfortably on the drops, you ARE doing it wrong, raise the bars or bring them closer.

For gearing, I ride 42×14, or about 78″. That is geared at about 21 mph for 90 rpm. I tend to grind into headwinds, but this gear allows me to ride a medium club run comfortably. Most come with 42×16. The three speed will add higher and lower to this base gear. But fixed is nicer. As epicyclic says, pick something like 42×15 for direct, and think of the top gear as overdrive. And I don’t believe yo are really pushing 52×12 at 90 rpm on the flat.

Then the question isn’t why is my commuter bike slow, but why does it feel slow!

Exactly. I really hate punctures to the point that I was using Marathon+ tyres a fews months ago.
600 grams each. Changed them to Durano+ (still heavyish) which are 400 grams each.

The bike feels more nimble, steers better, accelerates better etc,.
Did it make any noticeable difference on my 10 – 25 mile mixed surface loops on Strave – No

If the tyres are 600g each that does seem a lot, they were already fitted so I left them on.

I’m not claiming to be riding any specific RPM, the bike really is ridden almost always in 52×12 although the commute was 2 x 15miles not a straight 30 miler and I’m closer to an hour for 15 miles I think. My current commute is roughly half that 8 miles each way.

I *think* you might need to spend some time looking at how to use the gears on your road bike before you start trying to do minor refinements of tyre and ratio selection, how flat it is is only one of a handful of factors used to determine what gear ratios are useable. I’d only use a gear that big when really pressing on at the pointy end of a race. 30+mph. Obviously not everyone is the same, but choosing a massive gear “because the road is flat” needs to be thought about.

And as already said, some actual data on how fast you are actually going would be useful! As at the moment you’ve got two completely different bikes being ridden in two completely different ways with massively different gear ratios. So no common ground at all.

I *think* you might need to spend some time looking at how to use the gears on your road bike before you start trying to do minor refinements of tyre and ratio selection, how flat it is is only one of a handful of factors used to determine what gear ratios are useable.

Agreed. If you are indeed going at as modest speeds as you now suggest but are actually using the gears you think you are you either have a bizzare preferred mashing style or need to work on how to select your gearing. Most folk find 80-90rpm cadence the most efficent and comfortable on the road (hence why we assumed you were using that cadence). Go out and try pedalling at that cadence on your road of choice and come back and tell us what gearing you are using. Then we can recommend better the changes you could make to the PW. Are you actually spinning out on the PW? i.e. pedalling as fast as you can and still unable to put as much effort in as you want to. If not, that’s not likely to be your problem.