proper chainset or compact double, warning road bike content

Threads like this always just become a ridiculous combination of willy waving and people feeling inadequate and trying to qualify everything!

It’s personal FFS. TINAS summed it up pretty well.

Posting links to Strava and what not means **** all. What works for me won’t work for other people, recommendations are meaningless.

+1 to all that njee20 said ^^

I hate compacts on road bikes but I wouldn’t be without it on my CX.

Posting links to Strava and what not means **** all. What works for me won’t work for other people, recommendations are meaningless.

Perhapse there should be a ban on compact/standard discussions unless people can post links to quadrant analysis graphs?

I’d be ashamed to post to my Strava stuff only on the descents do I appear in the top 1/3, climbing I support the bottom of the table 🙁

Posting links to Strava and what not means **** all.

That was me njee.
I was trying to make a point to the willy wavers ,clearly too subtlely 🙂
And I agree,it’s whatever suits me.I’ll use whatever gearing I want to get me up the hills round here standard,compact,triple or MTB,as long as i don’t have to get off and walk!

I was trying to make a point to the willy wavers ,clearly too subtlely

What was the point?

The KOM is a strong rider, a measured 336W for 17 minutes is a good effort. 12.2mph is very doable in 39/23, so he clearly doesn’t need any lower.

Looking at the bottom of the table the speeds are halved, they do need lower gears.

What does that tell us exactly? People are different? That’s about it!

I’ve got two road bikes, one is a heavy steel Planet X Kaffenback that weighs more than my hardtail, gets ridden most days to work and has a compact. The other is a much lighter Planet X SL Pro Carbon that used to have a compact but after a few months on the Kaff i found that it was undergeared so i swapped to a standard. No complaints so far.

Looking at the bottom of the table the speeds are halved, they do need lower gears.

Or they need to TTFU… 😉
Maybe they’re that slow cos they DID sit there and spin up it in 30-27?

Pimpmaster Jazz – Member
Pah! 48/18, singlespeed all the way.

42:12 here. Pussy! 😉

Maybe they’re that slow cos they DID sit there and spin up it in 30-27?

On the basis that your FT power output if fixed, if you’re overgeared then you just pedal slower untill you reach a point where you would be quicker in a lower gear. If you don’t have a lower gear then you don’t go as quickly.

If it were as important as some people make it out to be, the Pro’s would be fitting 45-60chainrings for the flat stages to get the same percieved exertion as some amature hardmen on 42-52.

I’m doing La Marmotte this year and will be running a 50-34 compact and an 11-32 cassette.

For the rest of my riding I use a compact and 11-28 cassette.

I’ve got two road bikes, one is a heavy steel Planet X Kaffenback that weighs more than my hardtail, gets ridden most days to work and has a compact. The other is a much lighter Planet X SL Pro Carbon that used to have a compact but after a few months on the Kaff i found that it was undergeared so i swapped to a standard. No complaints so far.

Likewise – compact on the heavy Allez, standard on the Madone. I tend to find I use very similar gears on each – ie I have to shift out of the big ring at the same point on hills on each.

why go through all this bullshine when you can just fit a triple & cover all the bases 🙂

being incredibly muscular I find it best to ride everything in my big ring

sorry, I mean.. Ride what your comfortable with, Im pretty quick on the road (aka a few wins) and still ride 38-28 most of the time,I agree that you kind of need to work out if you can tolerate the extra pain of bigger gears.
Just enjoy your riding and frankly if i didnt race I’d ride a compact with a smaller big ring maybe a 36-48 for nice gear range.

Looking at the bottom of the table the speeds are halved, they do need lower gears.

Or not stop,get off ,have a drink and cake and take in the views oblivious to the fact that they are 20 yards before the end of the segment 😳

Finally read the replies.

And I’ve decided to get a 53/39 and 13/26.

🙂

You get used to what you ride. I have a compact with an 11:25 on my road bike at home, ride mostly in the Peak, done the Whitton on it, rode it all, quite happy thanks. But a few years ago on a fortnight’s break in southern Spain, I borrowed a mate’s bike with a standard double and rode that. Found it tough on the steeps for a couple of rides, then got used to it and by the end of the first week was quite happy.

I’d just get whatever you fancy, unless of course you’re a sponsored pro Strava racer and speed really matters 😉

42:12 here. Pussy

53/14. Pansy.

these threads are funny, I’ve got a compact on my winter bike (50/34 12-27) and a standard on my posh bike (with 12-25 cassette), the 39 on the posh bike is more useable than the 34 on the winter. But I’d rather have a 50 than a 53 to be honest. The gap between the 50 and 34 is annoying though.

In the big scheme of things it doesn’t really make much difference. If I’m going somewhere hilly but want to ride the posh bike I just stick on a 28 tooth cassette and that gets me up anything, pretty much.

I recently changed from a 48/34 double to a 54/42 setup because it was the cheapest chainset I could find. Unsurprisingly it’s much harder work and there are plenty of times when I have to stand and crank rather than more efficiently spinning.

I think of it as (forced interval) training.

I don’t really understand why one wouldn’t get a triple for a road bike, and use the small ring when you need to. But then there are a lot of things about road riding that I don’t think I’ll ever understand. stand up to objective scrutiny.

Reading all the replies it’s obvious that gearing is all down to each individual rider. I was riding a 50/34 with a 12/25 but found the jump in chain rings annoying so changed to a 53/39 on the front and a 12/27 on the back as 34/25 ratio is the same as 39/27. it also helps that i lost 10KG since xmas 😉

Ride what you feel most comfortable on not what looks more manly!!

I have 52-39 on my Allez because thats what it came with including a 12-27 on the rear, even for a fairly unfit middle ager like me this seemed ok . Recently changed the cassette to 12-23 because they were on offer, regretting this set up now, I’ve done quite a few miles and survived but would have preferred some lower options.

I’ve got a triple on the roadie, it’s a 50/39/30, which since I very rarely use the granny, means I’m running a double with a “get me home if I’m broken” bail out option…

Compact here 50-34 with 11-28 cassette theres to many 25% gradiants around here for a standard double

Even though I live somewhere flat I thin I prefer my compact. I can just leave it in the big ring 90% of the time.

On a standard set up I tend to hunt between the rings all the time to avoid cross over gears

I tend to find I use very similar gears on each – ie I have to shift out of the big ring at the same point on hills on each.

This is my experience as well. mixed between standard and compact, and over my normal sunday loop (rolling Northamptonshire 85 miler) it makes almost no difference time-wise.

Have a think about what you need, how you ride and where you go, and choose based on that and not what other people think.

I race so have 53/39s on my bikes 😕
Even if I didn’t race I’d go for that as I tend to ride all day in 39.
Never quite gelled with compacts.