Why was old time road gearing so hard?

My first bike as an “adult” back in 2016 or so was a gifted Claud Butler 531 steel thing, with friction shifters and 53/42 and 11-21 I think.

Stunning bike but absolutely brutal to climb anything on. Pretty sure I remember having to get off and have a rest half way up Arthurs Seat. I’m sure most of that was because I was a wannabe powerlifter at that point and hadn’t done anything resembling cardio in a few years, but still. Makes me chuckle now thinking about having a 34/34 lowest gear on my road bike.

Derailleur tech definitely got to the point where MTBs were running 28 tooth cassettes well before roadies moved away from 12-21/13-23 cassettes. Roadies are notorious luddites and suffering is a key part of the road-racing mythology. As an expert level MTB XC racer in the early nineties I copped abuse from roadies for turning up to (non race) road events with a 12-28 on a MTB, but I enjoyed the climbs a lot more than they did.

I had a road bike with a 42/52 (39/42 not a good idea as they’re both divisible by 13) 12-21 and it was horrible; years later on a modern road bike with 36/52 & 12-25 life was dreamy and a 12-28 cassette was lovely in the Pyrenees.

Rim brakes were still rubbish and road bike geometry still needs a rethink.

There’s something about riding on the road regularly that turns people’s brains into weird, atavistic mush. If they’d had square wheels, they’d have stuck with them for decades because that’s the way things have always been.

My first cycle club had the standard club contingent of Old Fogies and their outrage if you turned up to a winter club run on a normal bike rather than “the winter bike” (a thing made of lead and iron with a fixed gear ideally of 62″) was tangible. That was just The Way Things Were and to go against that trend was considered quite insulting.

That traditional thinking imposed itself in all sorts of areas. MTBing was very much not the done thing. They reluctantly accepted that it was OK for kids to do when playing around – kind of like a big BMX but BMXing was far too radical anyway. Cyclocross and track were acceptably pure. The introduction of STIs was greeted with collective scepticism. All these posh newcomers on their newfangled kit.

It took me a while to realise that it was simple jealousy. They’d grown up riding 531 steel frames (cos that was all there was) using 19c tubulars (same) and 5, maybe 6 sp gearing, friction shift. And suddenly here was this new stuff which was WAY better – carbon and aluminium and decent clincher tyres and more gears and better brakes and they now were too old to appreciate it. So they got really grumpy at the folk who could just go out and buy this stuff rather than (as they saw) earning the “right” to ride decent kit.

That reminds me, I need to swap gears on the track bike as accreditation gets competitive tomorrow and my current nice spiny gear that’s nice to hide in a group in won’t cut it anymore.

What gear are you running? 84″ (50×16) is typical for accreditation, but >90 is where the pointy end of racing has been for a while. I run 49×16 on the road – 82″ and get asked a lot how it feels – it’s about 52×17 in semi-compact speak, so half way down most people’s 10-11 speed blocks and is OK for medium paced (21-22mph average) club riding. When it goes downhill, I’m out the back though. Just gone down from 98″ to 95″ for track racing and fixed wheel TT racing at 25 mph and 90RPM average.

I don’t know, I’m “That’s a good FTP if you weren’t 95kg” fit. And I can hold ~24mph in a group which is 50:13 @85rpm.

Yep that’s downhill only speed for me and freewheeling.

That reminds me, I need to swap gears on the track bike as accreditation gets competitive tomorrow

We are definitely not in the same category of cyclist.

Its interesting. Roadie wise, every time I’ve done the new-fangled things that are supposed to be “better”, my garmin tells me I’m going slower.

23mm->25mm=>28mm tyres = slower, without any noticeable increase in comfort.

Back in the day when I was a student, I used to run 52/42 and 13-23. My dad told me not to use the 21 or the 23 sprockets unless we were in the Peak or one particular local climb. We rode everything, because why wouldn’t you? It wouldn’t be fun if it was easy!

When I got my first nice roadbike in my 30s, it had 53/39 and 10s 12-25. I could get up everything in the Peak (my now local riding). I built myself a new bike for my 40th with a compact on the front so 50/34 and 11-25. I didn’t really notice the hills get any easier, but I did notice my average had dropped by 1mph…

Unless its super silly steep, my slowest usable cadence is about 70. It doesn’t matter what the gear is. If I’m still sat down on a climab and pedalling, I’ll be doing at least 70. Give me a bigger gear and I’ll just go a bit faster.

I think you just adapt to what you have. If the gears are easier, you put less effort in (unless you’re riding to a power meter). If they’re harder, you get fitter and stronger because you have to.

(this is all for a semi-fit MAMIL blundering around his local a couple of times a week. If you’re a pro racer smashing out 3 weeks solid racing in the mountains – you may have different needs to me!)

I have two lovely 90’s road bikes, one Dura Ace and one 600/Ultegra. Over the years I’ve changed chainrings and cassettes, from a 52/42 and a 12-21 block (sometimes 12-19 for TT’s), to a 53/39 and a 13-26.  The 39-26 is as low as I can get both of them – makes it hard work up some hills. Given I’m mid 50’s the recent purchased was a used CX bike that I can get 34×34 as bottom gear and it will go up walls – makes it a far more pleasant experience.

We didn’t really have much choice in the late 80’s 90’s with gears.

I still love riding the bikes, but if I’m doing distance with lots of hills, or steep ones, out comes the CX on road tyres.

Disc brakes are still fugly though.

I’ve never got up Jenkins Chapel (Peaks) on my old road bikes – can just about do Mam Tor (which was unpleasantly hard) but the 34×34 just made it relatively easy. My Dura Ace 7402 mech is tiny compared to the newer stuff, but it is beautifully made, far better than new Dura Ace – just oozes quality.

I pushed mine up Jenkin Chapel back in the 90s. Took my road shoes off and got my white socks covered in road tar. Some years later I rolled my car coming down. Happy days eh?

Mixture of what was out there, what was needed and tradition. You could stick a 28t rear on  but with a 5 or 6 speed block there were some horrible gaps, nearly as bad as on a modern MTB cassette but at least you had two rings to help.

I reckon that there was a higher proportion of “serious” cyclists out there. The club scene was greater and whilst my experience is somewhat limited, only joining a club in 79, I am sure that we saw far fewer non club riders. Thus on the whole the novice rider was less common and thus easy gears were not so important. We grew up pushing a lower cadence and found it fine. Some of us still do. Club runs had the attitude that you pushed if you needed to or better still worked for your ride.

Nowadays we have better, or should I say greater,  access to what others are up to so it easier to jump on a bandwagon. Just look at the silly pedalling cadences that were adopted when Froome first came to notice.

Things changed when MTBing came along. Gearing was pushed as easier and was thus attractive to a certain element. Mega marketing took over.

Finally we don’t need to have really low gears. I couldn’t do it now but I used to tour on my race wheels as they were nicer than my normal ones. Only a 5 speed straight through block. 13 up with a normal 42/52 on the front. This was before the new fangled 39/53 came in. Tomorrow is the second TT of the year and the way home has a good chunk of 10% plus. The TT bike has an old screw on HED disc wheel. I have gone all wimpy with a 12-18 block but the hill won’t be a worry as I have an equally easy 39 inner on the front.

I think that people look at older gears in horror but they are not as bad as they seem.  In much the same way as people laugh at those of us who don’t use a mobile phone.

The number of cogs on the cassette (or freewheel) is probably the main technical reason for historic gear ranges.

Closely spaced gearing is important for road competition, and on old 5 speed blocks, getting an adequate top gear with a “modern” low gear would have resulted in gear steps that were far too wide. With more than double the cogs on a block today, it’s much easier to achieve both properly spaced gears and a nice low end.

I think that the changing market has also driven technical changes. Very few “racing” road bikes are actually used for competition, so instead of race focused gearing, there will be a much bigger demand for compact chainsets and large range cassettes to provide more forgiving ranges, particularly as the people spending serious money on bikes are perhaps more likely to be of mature years…

I used to race hill climbs on a bottom gear of 39 x 21, but for long distance riding these days I find my 48-32 sub compact and 11-28 cassette is a great combination.

Sum of youse is well old, innit.

This is why. FFS.

This is why. FFS.

This is why. FFS.

Apologies, posts went as wonky as new mechs.

And the new stuff get’s mangled easier. My XT RD-M737 – slightly newer than above (many pics – sorry) is way stronger than the X9 10 speed mech I have on my newer FS bike.

Blimey I hadn’t realised how chunky those XO mechs are.

They didn’t like their knees.

@crazy-legs

It took me a while to realise that it was simple jealousy. They’d grown up riding 531 steel frames (cos that was all there was) using 19c tubulars (same) and 5, maybe 6 sp gearing, friction shift. And suddenly here was this new stuff which was WAY better – carbon and aluminium and decent clincher tyres and more gears and better brakes and they now were too old to appreciate it. So they got really grumpy at the folk who could just go out and buy this stuff rather than (as they saw) earning the “right” to ride decent kit.

You sure you’re not talking about ebikes? 😉

they just didn’t know any better

I think this and I think it was also driven by the sports science of the day. Back in the 60’s and 70’s the accepted way to go faster was to build bigger muscles and run big gears at low cadence. That thinking changed when people started to take sports science seriously.

Now we know that a lighter athlete, with less muscle mass, spinning a faster gear can be lighter and make more power. Hence he/she can be faster. I think this has driven us all to take higher cadence riding on different gear ratios seriously.

 I didn’t really notice the hills get any easier, but I did notice my average had dropped by 1mph…

If you use lower gears it may feel easier just because you could well just be going slower.  My fastest up hill times on my regularly ridden loops are all on fixed gear but the fastest overall loop times are all on the occasions I had a geared road bike because I am losing out on flat and downhill.

As someone who has ridden fixed gear for over twenty years I don’t have a problem with the relatively hard gearing of old but then I don’t live in the alps.

One of my favourite lines from The Rider is “his 21 was as clean as a whistle” – so even if you had “low” gears it was a sign of strength never to use them.

They didn’t like their knees.

Rosedale chimney on 42×21.

Most of the Passes in the lakes (and peak district) on the same set up. Sometimes with a large carradice saddlebag too and enough kit for a couple of nights in a hostel.

I did weigh under 50 kilos at the time, so the biggest risk was actually getting blown off the bike…

Rosedale chimney on 42×21.

There used to be a famous road race called Tour of the Peak which included several ascents of Winnats Pass. On the first ascent of it one year, Rob Hayles broke his front mech trying to change down and it left him stuck in the big ring. He had to ride about another 3 ascents of Winnats Pass in the 53. 😳

It took me a while to realise that it was simple jealousy. They’d grown up riding 531 steel frames (cos that was all there was) using 19c tubulars (same) and 5, maybe 6 sp gearing, friction shift. And suddenly here was this new stuff which was WAY better – carbon and aluminium and decent clincher tyres and more gears and better brakes and they now were too old to appreciate it. So they got really grumpy at the folk who could just go out and buy this stuff rather than (as they saw) earning the “right” to ride decent kit.

You could apply this to many aspects of MTB tech over the last couple of decades. Everything from disc brakes, tubeless tyres, suspension and dropper posts apparently was only a skill compensator for a skill they had aquired over many years of riding.

One of my favourite lines from The Rider is “his 21 was as clean as a whistle” – so even if you had “low” gears it was a sign of strength never to use them.

Laurens Ten Dam has a short film were they ride the route (on a modern bike), and speak with Krabbe and other Dutch cycling writers – really good, and they use that quote as the title.

Would have been mid 80’s and I did some recreational road but around Sheffield found it a bit tough to turn the cranks over …I knew a guy I dealt with on a daily basis was a “club rider” so I asked what would help …surprise surprise MTFU.

The one time I broke my rear mech and SSed my Salsa, I was definitely not quicker. Even before I had to stop and walk.  I think people who think you always ride less hard with gears don’t know how to pace.

MTBing was very much not the done thing.

The reason I asked my dad for a mountain bike was I didn’t want to ride the bikes they did in the touring club my dad belonged to, as they were the most boring people ever – to the 15 year me anyway. It wound them them that I could carry on pedalling when they got off and pushed, as if lower gears was some sort of personal slight to them.

Im a fairly fit club cyclist. Last year I rode up hardknott, gearing was 34/32. I remember looking down at my powermeter, and was pushing over 5 watts per kilo at about 60rpm. And I thought, ‘how the hell did folk get up here on a 39/23’

I think people who think you always ride less hard with gears don’t know how to pace.

Not really.  I ride less hard up hills when I have a geared bike because I have the option to and ultimately I go slower.  Not really an overly conscious choice but more to do with just having the one gear so getting on with it and not letting the cadence drop too much.

Last year I rode up hardknott, gearing was 34/32. I remember looking down at my powermeter, and was pushing over 5 watts per kilo at about 60rpm. And I thought, ‘how the hell did folk get up here on a 39/23’

5 W/kg at 37.5rpm?

thats still a pedal stroke every 0.8 seconds, so very plausible for a high gear gurner.

Tour of the Peak

I may have ridden, errrrrr, started that race on occasion…

If you see old footage of them riding uphill they look like single-speeders who are on a 1 min grunt hill, but they pushed that gear/cadence all the way over the Alps. To do that you must have a different type of fitness and strength to riders now.

I used to work with a guy who’d raced the Archer GP on a 42-21 bottom gear, late 80s-early 90s I think? If anyone knows those hills (Whiteleaf in particular.. always hated that climb) you’ll know why I think that’s nuts. 10 years older than me and I hardly kept up with him hill walking, never mind on the bike.

And I thought, ‘how the hell did folk get up here on a 39/23’

As above, just really really low cadence.  Ask a singlespeeder.

Not really an overly conscious choice

Exactly, so if you’re used to consciously finding and sitting at your limit for a particular climb and selecting the appropriate gear, you can do it.  Sometimes I get the pacing wrong and have to drop down, but if I were in bottom gear or singlespeeding I’d have to get off at that point.

It is not about pacing, I go faster on a fixed gear up hill as need to to keep cadence up.  Pacing doesn’t even cross my mind.

It is not about pacing, I go faster on a fixed gear up hill as need to to keep cadence up. Pacing doesn’t even cross my mind.

Same on my SS road bike – I have to go for it uphill, there’s no option to sit and spin.