Front Chainrings and The Theory of Relativity

The old rings.
The old rings.

Disregarding my Schwinn Typhoon, I started keeping score with my 1976 Peugeot PX 10 LE. It came with a Stronglight 52 x 45 and a 14 x 21 five speed freewheel. I always thought this Peugeot was set up for the pavé of northern France with those gears and wire-wrapped and soldered 3x tubular wheels. Yet according to Peugeot’s advertising, this is what the boys rode in the Tour de France. Chapeau! Since this was my first real bike, the coolness of this Rule #5 rig was lost on me. The uncoolness of Mafac brakes and Simplex derailleurs was not lost on me and over time I swapped out many of the French components for Campagnolo ones but the Stronglight crankset was worthy and it stayed the longest. I found a drilled-out 42 inner ring. Surely Bernard Thévenet would approve of that. It was not such a taskmaster as the 45 and scored very high on the cool scale.

Eventually the 52s went to 53s and the 42s to 39s and there they stayed.

Post-Peugeot I lived on the sandy moraine called Cape Cod. It is rolling, easy-to-ride country; there were no steep, long climbs and the default 39 inner ring was too small for the Cape. Some switched back to 42s but our LBS had a handful of Campagnolo 44 tooth inner rings and a few of us installed them. It didn’t occur to me at the time but I was reverting to a more modern version of my original Peugeot gears. This was not a chainring for the early season but once summer arrived, it made perfect sense. The shifts between the front two chainrings were subtle and smooth. It was all good until we ventured over to a proper climb on the nearby island of Martha’s Vineyard. That climb, known to us as the hill-o-death, started off steep and never eased (this was pre-Garmin world, an estimated 15% grade). It actually was the kind of climb where if you were going to have a heart attack, it would be here. The 44 worked, it just meant most of it was done out of the saddle and the pain cave entrance was lower down. But, it may have been a faster way to get the job done. There was no in-the-saddle spinning going on; it was just more heaving of bike and body trying to turn over the shortest gear the 44 would give up.

I came to Maui armed with the 53 x 39. Earlier on Kauai, I once felt shame and horror as an older dude with stick legs passed me on the Waimea Canyon climb. Those sorry sticks were whizzing over a vile compact crankset. It gave me pause. But on Maui the 53 x 39 got the job done, until I did Maui’s version of the hill-o-death, The Wall. I got up it, but it wasn’t pretty or easy. Something was going to break doing that: knees, heart, chain, pedal, more likely part of me, rather than the bike. I was on Maui for the long haul and the Wall was not going anywhere so I opted for a compact crank.

My above prologue leads me to this, my theory of relativity. The terrain dictates the chainrings. You want a 52 x45 on your bike, stay away from the Pyrenees. If you have a compact crankset on there, there had better be some big ass climbs out your front door. But here at Velominati we like to quantify our suffering. My math is as weak as my VAM but I’m working on a calculation with correction factors which would determine what kind of crank one should have on their bike.

((GLx %Gr) 1/age) Bf x BPf x Df

Where:

GL = length of toughest grade encountered on Sunday ride.

Gr = Steepest sustained section of GL.

B = Belgian Factor, also known as Museeuw. The need to always ride in the large ring, always.

BPf = Big Pussy Factor, inverse of Bf. The inclination when a climb begins to sit when one might stand, to shift down rather than up.

Df = The Dutch factor, this is a terrain correction for sea level riding, as the Dutch do along the North Sea.

 

 

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170 Replies to “Front Chainrings and The Theory of Relativity”

  1. This pic is a few weeks ago…the LvdK and I rented a house in the Ardenne for a week and invited her parents to come along for a few days. Her father, 65, who I have nicknamed the OFH(Original Flemish Hardman) rides an old Diamant alloy whose lowest gear is a 39/25. I on the other hand am still riding my first “serious” roadbike, a budget Trek 1.5 with a triple so low that a mountain bike would blush(soon to be replaced, but funds accrue slowly). In the pic you see the OFH about 3km into the Col de Haussire doing what he did nearly the whole way….standing. I am pretty sure he put 300 meters into me over the whole climb. Leaving me only one burning question….is September to soon to start training for spring?

  2. @Ken Ho

    @Teocalli

    @Nof Landrien

    If the smallest cog on your cassette has more than 26 teeth (gear inches with a 39 inner ring = 39.5) then I suggest you come out of the glasshouse before you start throwing stones at compact users.

    I guess this just restarts the discussion as to what is changing up or down a gear but a SMALLEST cog of MORE than 26 teeth. Jeez – a 26-38 on the rear or something?!?! Who makes that?

    I think he meant “smallest gear”, meaning largest rear cog. I could be wrong though.

    Close ratio clusters are not new. When I was a lad, a mate got picked on a racking team, and his bike was re-jigged by a local shop. He came home with a very cylindrical cluster, and this was in the days when 10 speeds was flash, meaning 5 cogs on the back. I wonder what it was ?

    There is a “front” reference of the cassette (outer cog) and a “back” of the cassette (inner cog).

  3. @Teocalli

    I think you missed the implied at the start of my post………

    Weird the middle of that got stripped – should have included [ fx: wind up ] after “implied” – I must have used a special char that Chrome didn’t like…..(hope it likes what I just put in this and I’m not back in the dunces closet!)

  4. @johnthughes

    This pic is a few weeks ago…the LvdK and I rented a house in the Ardenne for a week and invited her parents to come along for a few days. Her father, 65, who I have nicknamed the OFH(Original Flemish Hardman) rides an old Diamant alloy whose lowest gear is a 39/25. I on the other hand am still riding my first “serious” roadbike, a budget Trek 1.5 with a triple so low that a mountain bike would blush(soon to be replaced, but funds accrue slowly). In the pic you see the OFH about 3km into the Col de Haussire doing what he did nearly the whole way….standing. I am pretty sure he put 300 meters into me over the whole climb. Leaving me only one burning question….is September to soon to start training for spring?

    Brilliant  – chapeau to him. I hope I’m doing that to my daughter’s boyfriend when I’m 65.

    “So you want to marry my daughter… I don’t give a shit about your prospects sonny, if you can’t beat me up La Redoute.”

  5. @johnthughes

    Great Photo.  Am I the only one who is torn between stopping on a climb to take a photo and the urge to keep going as to stop would spoil the achievement?

  6. @johnthughes

    This pic is a few weeks ago…the LvdK and I rented a house in the Ardenne for a week and invited her parents to come along for a few days. Her father, 65, who I have nicknamed the OFH(Original Flemish Hardman) rides an old Diamant alloy whose lowest gear is a 39/25. I on the other hand am still riding my first “serious” roadbike, a budget Trek 1.5 with a triple so low that a mountain bike would blush(soon to be replaced, but funds accrue slowly). In the pic you see the OFH about 3km into the Col de Haussire doing what he did nearly the whole way….standing. I am pretty sure he put 300 meters into me over the whole climb. Leaving me only one burning question….is September to soon to start training for spring?

    Beautiful…

    And no, September is not too soon to start training for spring; sounds like about the right time to me  (assuming you live in the northern hemisphere).

    By the way: LvdK? I haven’t come across that particular acronym before. What does it stand for?.

  7. @ErikdR My nickname for my girlfriend, Lady van de Kempen, I am an American and have been living in Belgium for about three years now. She is from Belgium, from a region east of Antwerp known as de Kempen(loosely translated, “the country”).

  8. @Teocalli I managed that while moving…though I may have set a record for slowest forward movement on a bike that isn’t a track stand. =)

  9. @johnthughes

    @Teocalli I managed that while moving…though I may have set a record for slowest forward movement on a bike that isn’t a track stand. =)

    Ha Ha, nice.  I must get a small, half decent camera for use on the bike.  Trying to do that and get through all the correct menu options on my phone is just asking for trouble.

  10. @johnthughes

    @ErikdR My nickname for my girlfriend, Lady van de Kempen, I am an American and have been living in Belgium for about three years now. She is from Belgium, from a region east of Antwerp known as de Kempen(loosely translated, “the country”).

    Aha, op zo’n manier – thanks. You lucky man…

    Prior to moving to Denmark (more than 20 years ago already; how time flies), I lived in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. From there, Antwerpen could be reached by car in just over an hour, perhaps an hour and a half. My brother and I often went there for a Friday-evening. Good times; great city…

  11. @ErikdR

    Anyway: the Moser has a 42-52 chain ring combo, and a ‘straight-6″² at the back (13-18). Perfect for the pancake-flat Dutch ‘polder’ landscape it was made for, then. Here in Denmark – and more specifically, Eastern Jutland with its relatively short but steep climbs, it’s a different story. Until now, I’ve been riding it with that same, original gearing, because I think it looks so fucking cool. But, as my knees keep reminding me every time the road points up, I am an idiot.

    Beautiful…yeah, a 42 x 18 is not the easiest gear to warm up with. No harm in putting on a 23 or 24 instead. Then it would be a fun bike to ride no matte where you went, as long as you stayed in Denmark.

    Still, a steel Moser is a good bike to be gifted, though sad idea of owner finally saying “basta.” Maybe it was that 18 tooth gear that did it to him.

  12. @Nof Landrien

    All compact (50×34), all the time since 2002. (Although I’ve stopped with the EPMS.) 50×34. Rule of thumb for the rear: >3,500 metres climbing in a day slap a 12-27 on; more than 2,500m climbing in a day put the 11-25 on; otherwise an 11-23 does pretty much everything.

    If the smallest cog on your cassette has more than 26 teeth (gear inches with a 39 inner ring = 39.5) then I suggest you come out of the glasshouse before you start throwing stones at compact users.

    I climbed the Giant of Provence with a 53×39 11-23 in 2000. It wasn’t heroic, it was just stupid.

    I feel like I imagine Luther felt at the Diet of Worms.

    +1 beauty!

  13. @ChrisO

    On the subject of big gears and legs/knees, I’ve always been a spinner – I would regard a 95 rpm average for a ride as normal, and anything below 75 as grinding and only to be endured for the shortest time possible.

    Recently however my coach has been setting sessions building up long periods of low cadence. I’m up to 30 minutes tempo at around 65 rpm. Also sessions with big gear acceleration bursts

    I was expecting it to be leg-shattering but although the first few sessions felt like I’d been doing squats it has been relatively OK since then and I think it is quite helpful in building leg strength.

    I like this. That must be why all the riders of old had massive guns. 65 rpm was all they could muster in their little 45 x 18 climbing gear. I do think this is a good training scheme, must attempt it.

  14. @ErikdR – God bless your dad; this means I have 28 years more of riding! Assuming I don’t bite it before that.

  15. @Teocalli – That is a great pic and reminds me of many of the rides out here in the Bay Area.  Awesome that @johnthughes took the shot while butterflies were flutterring through his spokes.  And, no, you are not hte only one.  I really enjopy the climbing scenery and have regretted not stoppoing for a pic on many occasion – the potential onset of the Man with the Hammer just keeps me motivated to move forward. Here is one I had to stop for, however; just before the final descent (into the abyss?) on an early morning warm up on the coast between SF and SC. (BTW – I use a compact)

  16. @HMBSteve

    Cheers… Yes, he’s a tough old geezer. Still fit as a fiddle, from the looks of it – and sharp-witted to boot. I’m crossing my fingers that I have inherited at least some of that genetic brew.

  17. @Gianni

    Still, a steel Moser is a good bike to be gifted, though sad idea of owner finally saying “basta.” Maybe it was that 18 tooth gear that did it to him.

    Hmmm, yes. That’s what I thought, too, at first. I actually offered to make the gearing lighter on the Moser at some point  – but my dad told me it’s actually his (lack of a) sense of balance that was bothering him; he just doesn’t trust himself in traffic anymore, at least not on two wheels. He still drives, and he walks several miles each week, bless him.

  18. @ErikdR

    @johnthughes

    @ErikdR My nickname for my girlfriend, Lady van de Kempen, I am an American and have been living in Belgium for about three years now. She is from Belgium, from a region east of Antwerp known as de Kempen(loosely translated, “the country”).

    Aha, op zo’n manier – thanks. You lucky man…

    Prior to moving to Denmark (more than 20 years ago already; how time flies), I lived in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. From there, Antwerpen could be reached by car in just over an hour, perhaps an hour and a half. My brother and I often went there for a Friday-evening. Good times; great city…

    Ha, Just came back from Copenhagen a few days ago. My grandparents immigrated from Denmark in the early 20th century and I still have family there(cousins a remove or two), but they had come years ago for visits in the States, and now take visits from me. Had a great time at Christiania’s 40th birthday party on Thursday last. =) I am hoping to haul my bike up there next spring/summer and do some riding. As bad as the Flemish winds get…I am guessing they are even worse in the northern reaches =)

  19. @johnthughes

    @ErikdR

    @johnthughes

    @ErikdR My nickname for my girlfriend, Lady van de Kempen, I am an American and have been living in Belgium for about three years now. She is from Belgium, from a region east of Antwerp known as de Kempen(loosely translated, “the country”).

    Aha, op zo’n manier – thanks. You lucky man…

    Prior to moving to Denmark (more than 20 years ago already; how time flies), I lived in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. From there, Antwerpen could be reached by car in just over an hour, perhaps an hour and a half. My brother and I often went there for a Friday-evening. Good times; great city…

    Ha, Just came back from Copenhagen a few days ago. My grandparents immigrated from Denmark in the early 20th century and I still have family there(cousins a remove or two), but they had come years ago for visits in the States, and now take visits from me. Had a great time at Christiania’s 40th birthday party on Thursday last. =) I am hoping to haul my bike up there next spring/summer and do some riding. As bad as the Flemish winds get…I am guessing they are even worse in the northern reaches =)

    Shit yeah; the winds – especially north-westerners, in spring and autumn, and south-westerners in summer – do get pretty rough sometimes. Many years ago, together with my cousin. I rode from the Netherlands to Denmark, which was great – and then back again, which was torture. Through south-Jutland, that part of northern Germany that is known as ‘Ost-Friesland’, and the north of Holland, we faced a howling southwesterly wind every single day for 6 days in a row – I’ll never forget that as long as I live.

    Feel free to get in touch when you are in these parts*. Seriously: I’ll be happy to point you in the direction of some beautiful rides. Denmark is a great country for cycling (particularly Jutland, i.e. the mainland, and the islands of Funen and Langeland).

    * @Frank & @Gianni have my mail address, I think.

  20. Rapidly approaching midnight here (as well as in Belgium, I suppose). Over & Out for now.

  21. @Teocalli

    Am I the only one who is torn between stopping on a climb to take a photo and the urge to keep going as to stop would spoil the achievement?

    Nope, happens a lot. Today’s was a little different though in as we came over a crest & started a pretty steep descent back in to a gorge this epic vista opened up with fog, sunrise & all sorts, problem was the descent was that steep that I was already going fast enough that pulling the bike up wasn’t an option. View atop the previous climb wasn’t terrible though.

  22. @unversio

    This is the week to mount up the 54/44. Crank length is 175. Me 6″² 3″³

    The question that remains is: are you built like a rabbit or a horse? And I’m talking about legs, FYI. Crank length has nothing to do with height, but inseam.

    I’m 6’4″ and only an inch taller than you, but I am willing to bet if I rode your Merckx, I’d raise the saddle by a half meter.

    Crank length has to do with the circle your legs can draw, not the gear you can pull. The analog of this is telling someone which tire width they run and a what pressure, without relaying the weight of the rider and the severity of the tarmac.

  23. I hope I have the time in the next day or two to read through all the RAD thats been posted here. That said I am investing in 41, 42, 44, and 46 tooth inner chainrings. And a 44T outer ring for CX.

    I realize that going small is in vogue and that the world is overpopulated by pussies and people who pay attention to “facts” and “science”. That said, that science is clouded by doping and all other manner of skewed data.

    The only thing I really know is that when I was following Johan Museeuw’s wheel in 2012, I couldn’t keep up with him when going uphill. I noticed he was in the big ring (and so were some Keeper’s Tour companions) and so I changed into that same ring. Suddenly I stopped reaching for gears and was comfortable and holding wheels.

    Big ring is mo’betta so long as you can turn the gear. I am chainging to a 42 for Seattle riding, and a 46 for the Cobbles. As for CX, 44 is the Score. It rhymes, which means logic and science hold no sway here.

  24. Im with Gianni on this one, 50 X 34 all the way, covers all situations from the flatest of flats to a couple of our 18% ramps.

  25. I’ll run a 50×34 when SRAM release their 10t cog for road then you could have a sweet 10-23 to run with it. I would recommend trying bigger tyres for those on compact groups, a 25mm tyre gives you another 109 mm in roll distance.

  26. @piwakawaka

    I’ll run a 50×34 when SRAM release their 10t cog for road then you could have a sweet 10-23 to run with it. I would recommend trying bigger tyres for those on compact groups, a 25mm tyre gives you another 109 mm in roll distance.

    Correct, already doing it !   23 up front 25 out back

  27. @Barracuda

    Great photograph! Can I ask: Where is this, exactly – and what is that impressive piece of engineering in the far background?

  28. @Barracuda

    @piwakawaka

    I’ll run a 50×34 when SRAM release their 10t cog for road then you could have a sweet 10-23 to run with it. I would recommend trying bigger tyres for those on compact groups, a 25mm tyre gives you another 109 mm in roll distance.

    Correct, already doing it ! 23 up front 25 out back

    Front and rear for me, feels like more tyre, ‘cos there is, run the front at 100psi, rear 110, I’m 77kg really rate the down hill performance with a bigger softer front, seems to track much tighter through turns,feels like there is more grip than the 23’s, took a few rides to get used to the bigger gearing!

  29. @ErikdR

    @Barracuda

    Great photograph! Can I ask: Where is this, exactly – and what is that impressive piece of engineering in the far background?

    Victor Harbor – South Australia, Waitpinga Hill Climb, Granite Island Causeway in the background

  30. @Gianni

    @Nof Landrien

    All compact (50×34), all the time since 2002. (Although I’ve stopped with the EPMS.) 50×34. Rule of thumb for the rear: >3,500 metres climbing in a day slap a 12-27 on; more than 2,500m climbing in a day put the 11-25 on; otherwise an 11-23 does pretty much everything.

    If the smallest cog on your cassette has more than 26 teeth (gear inches with a 39 inner ring = 39.5) then I suggest you come out of the glasshouse before you start throwing stones at compact users.

    I climbed the Giant of Provence with a 53×39 11-23 in 2000. It wasn’t heroic, it was just stupid.

    I feel like I imagine Luther felt at the Diet of Worms.

    +1 beauty!

    A friend of mine climbed Ventoux this year on a 53×39 11-25 and had a similar experience of arriving at the summit 20 minutes down on me (52×36 12-27) and another fellow rider (50×34 12-28).  We lauded him for his hard man efforts but the response was that it wasn’t heroic, just stupid (slightly over the “right amount” of dumb?).

    The next day he swapped in my 12-27 and I completely cracked trying to stay with him from Bedoin to watch the summit finish.

  31. @Bianchi Denti

    @Chris

    @Beers No offense taken. If people being wrong on the internet bothered me, this is the last place I’d come to.

    I will give it a go, my climbing does need a bit of refinement. It’ll have to be hill reps though, it’s pretty flat round here.

    It might also be that your glutes are stronger than your quads. Some quad exercises for a few months may help increase your standing pedalling power.

    Another option is that you quads get tired much faster than your glutes, so you run out of standing power quickly. This could be a position problem, or a physiology problem.

    I’m only chipping in because I was the other way round for years (standing = faster, sitting = much slower), until I got my glutes firing. My massage therapist mate @Josh figured out how to help my glutes work through the duration of a ride, rather than seizing up at the first sight of a hill.

    It may be contrary to Velominati instincts, but I spend much more money on body maintenance than I do on bike parts these days.

    I think there’s a lot of sense in what you’re saying. Since switching from messing about with mountain bikes (largely a gravity assisted avoidance of climbing type affair) to road bikes, I’d say that a lot of the serious work to I’ve put into upgrading my guns has been on the rollers which, at my skill level, is entirely in the saddle. It’s probably also left me low on grunt and relying on a high cadence. When the sufferfest session tells me it’s time for an 8/10 effort at 60 rpm, that simply cannot be done on the rollers, there isn’t enough resistance.

    Quad exercises are certainly required as are more low cadence sessions. Now is also the time to start if KT14 is going to be done properly.

    @Bianchi Denti

    It may be contrary to Velominati instincts, but I spend much more money on body maintenance than I do on bike parts these days.

    This is true but bike parts are just so much prettier and shiny.

  32. @Chris

    ……. that simply cannot be done on the rollers, there isn’t enough resistance.

    Quad exercises are certainly required as are more low cadence sessions. Now is also the time to start if KT14 is going to be done properly.

    I mix my winter turbo sessions with intervals on the rowing machine and have the two side by side.  It seems to help give me a bit more zip (that being an entirely relative term I hasten to add) when I need the power and it’s also good for core strength which you don’t really get turning over the turbo on a static bike.  Also helps to break up the sessions with a bit of variety.

  33. @Teocalli I hate those things. It’s not that they aren’t any good, quite the opposite but there only seems to be two intensity settings, vomit or pass out. There also doesn’t seem to be anyway of taking your mind off the task at hand (other than hypoxia), anything more than 10 minutes listening to the doubts in the back of my mind would be torture. At least on the rollers I’ve got balance and form to think about.

    Besides, if I had the budget for a rowing machine…

    (Just in case there’s some rowing nut about to say that form is all important, I know but I just don’t’ care it’s too boring and proper rowing is a sport for people who can’t handle the future)

  34. @ErikdR

    Anyway: the Moser has a 42-52 chain ring combo, and a ‘straight-6″² at the back (13-18). Perfect for the pancake-flat Dutch ‘polder’ landscape it was made for, then. Here in Denmark – and more specifically, Eastern Jutland with its relatively short but steep climbs, it’s a different story. Until now, I’ve been riding it with that same, original gearing, because I think it looks so fucking cool. But, as my knees keep reminding me every time the road points up, I am an idiot.

    And to be honest: the bike may look cool, but the way I have to wrestle it up the nastier inclines, out of the saddle and weaving from side to side, most probably doesn’t.

    Yeah I remember when we were driving around the forests outside Aarhus with my uncle a few years back, all I could think was that it would be awesome countryside for riding in…

  35. @ErikdR

    @Barracuda OK, thanks! Granite Island, eh? Now that sounds like a good place to go for a ride…

    nah it would probably take less than 5 minutes to ride around the whole island…but if you want to try that climb I’m pretty sure our fishy friend has that lined up to start the Cogal in February (should give you enough time to organise flights to escape the Danish winter).

  36. @Chris Ha ha!  Nice one.  Good point re the budget – I’ve had mine for longer than I have been back into cycling (which is actually quite a long time).  So that is my only excuse for not better investing the money.

    I agree with the 10 mins though – tends to be my maximum mental endurance too.  Though on the bike I use a turbo rather than rollers.  The thought of getting it wrong on rollers and suddenly going from zero to infinity and beyond in the conservatory didn’t seem a good idea when I bought mine.  So I don’t have the form to concentrate on.

    Of course the other thing rowers might say is that they always like to arrive in the future with a surprise (not that I’m a rower).

  37. @Mikael Liddy

    @ErikdR

    @Barracuda OK, thanks! Granite Island, eh? Now that sounds like a good place to go for a ride…

    nah it would probably take less than 5 minutes to ride around the whole island…but if you want to try that climb I’m pretty sure our fishy friend has that lined up to start the Cogal in February (should give you enough time to organise flights to escape the Danish winter).

    I had a quick look at ‘Google Maps’ to check the place out – it did, indeed, look somewhat under-whelming. I’m puzzled, though: if the island is that small (and there’s not all that much going on, from the looks of it – apart from that Café and gift shop on the East tip), why have they built that whopper of a causeway? is it a huge tourist attraction of sorts, by any chance?

  38. @Chris

     

    (Just in case there’s some rowing nut about to say that form is all important, I know but I just don’t’ care it’s too boring and proper rowing is a sport for people who can’t handle the future)

    Well, ’tis. But you know a sport’s retrograde when cyclists write it off as old fashioned. And slow, boring, for exceptionally tall freaks, slow, and boring. Cycling’s way better.

    BTW, the glutes/quads thing can be positional more than training – the further back your saddle is, the more active the posterior chain, the further forward your saddle is, the more our quads are activated. The sweet spot is in there somewhere.

  39. @Mikael Liddy

    Yeah I remember when we were driving around the forests outside Aarhus with my uncle a few years back, all I could think was that it would be awesome countryside for riding in…

    Yep – East coast of Jutland, that’s the home turf, at the moment. (I live about 90 km south of Aarhus – i.e. a bit closer to the German border – in a town called ‘Kolding’.

    As you probably know, the West coast of Jutland is pretty flat and marshy – and gorgeous, in its own way – but the East coast has some nice rollers (carved into the landscape during the Ice Age, if I’m not mistaken). Worth a visit – Some nice rides to be found here.

  40. @wiscot

    @norm Nice Elastica quote slipped in there!

    Sleeper?

    You’re a big man
    But you’re out of shape
    I could help you
    Get it back again

    We should both go to bed
    Till we make each other sore
    We should both stay in bed
    Till we make each other roar

    You’re delicious aha
    You’re delicious aha
    You’re delicious aha haa

  41. Will I be immediately excommunicated by the keepers for suggesting a single ring (so lighter with no front mech)? eg 46 up front and 11 / 28 out back? Essentially the same range as my old school 53 /42 with 13 / 28 that took me over European ranges with camping stuff. 

    I look forward to my flogging.

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