Les Choix
I’ve never been able to decide if choices are a gift or a curse; a lack of choices introduces simplicity but also with it the risk that the simple choices do not meet the demands of a complex world. An abundance of similar choices, on the other hand, often reduces the impact of getting things a little bit wrong, but also decreases the thoughtfulness in decision making. Finally, having many divergent choices mostly just leads to a lot of planning and ultimately indecision, assuming my experience in Corporate America is anything to go by.
These days, we tend to ride bicycles with 10 or 11 speed clusters made up of sprockets that are closely matched to their neighbors. This development removes the rider somewhat from the art of gear selection, a fact carried further by bar-mounted shifters; as gradients increase and decrease, we glide from gear to gear maintaining our cadence with hardly any consideration given to the ratios hard at work for us. It is a beautiful freedom to ride like this, but it is also another degree of separation between rider and machine.
I recently read an interview with Sean Kelly, who was discussing his defeat at the hands of Greg Lemond during the 1989 World Championship Road Race. With only seven sprockets at his disposal over a route slightly too hilly for a rider of his ilk, he was faced with a difficult choice: spare the legs on the climb with a 25T at the bottom end, or hamper his sprint with a 13T at the top end.
Kelly faced a tough decision: mount a gear that would carry him over the climb to contend the finale with the handicap of a 13T, or overload the cannons on too big a gear for the climb and never have the chance to go for the win in the first place. He deliberated over the decision while training on the course and finally decided for the low gear. Kelly made it over the climbs to contest the sprint, but his 53×13 was hopelessly outmatched by LeMan’s monster 54×12.
More recently, the Cycling world was aflutter about Tony Martin’s choice to ride a 58T front chain ring during a time trail. This wasn’t a display of bravado but rather a highly refined choice of chain line: knowing the speeds he wanted to ride, he chose his big ring in such a size that would provide the straightest chain line in the gear he’d be riding in during the majority of the race. The result was less friction, and a Tour de France stage win under his belt.
There is an art to gear and cluster choice that is nearly lost with today’s expanding sprocket ranges, but it remains within our grasp if only we are willing to seek it out. Don’t settle for knowing the maximum and minimum size gears in your block; know exactly which gears you have across the board, and understand what sizes you’ll be missing and gaining when switching between 11-23, 12-25 and 13-26 – there is more to it than just taking one off one end and slapping it on the other.
It might not make any material difference to your Cycling, but it will show the quality of your character.
@frank
{Bows in gratitude} Only because I have stood upon the shoulders of giants.
@frank
Before I found my way…I actually bought a bike with a compact on it. The shame is that I didn’t even know what a compact crankset was. My goodness, was I green. A few years on and my legs have still never, ever gotten along with it. I still feel as if I’m always in the wrong gear. I’m going to swap it out next time the Budgetatus is overflowing, which could be by the end of this month.
It’s as easy as riding a bike…
This is one of those discussions that highlights the silliness of that statement. When you ride daily and head out solo for long distances, you begin to think deeply about small things, like the number of teeth on the chainwheels you are turning around and around.
The very minor things are amplified into larger importance and if you want to push, and enjoy yourself, you need the proper tools for the job. Cassettes are key!
Great post and a good one for filling the comments while the racing is still light on the schedule and the weather too shitty for a lot of outside riding.
I ride 11-23 on Bikes 1,2,3 and 12-25 on $3 and the Graveur. 36 inside rings on all. Will I go the Spinal Tap option and go to 11? I doubt it – too expensive an unnecessary. I can handle anything with what I have. I’m sure 11 will become 12 in good time thus rendering 10s old school and cheaper. Isn’t it amazing how much cheaper 8 and 9 speed stuff is compared to 10 and 11?
Of course, I’m an old fart who rode 12 -18 straight through blocks in the 80s when you could simply replace whatever sprocket you used the most individually instead of the whole friggin cassette. That’s a pure scam right there. Let’s face it, most of us probably ride in the same 2 or 3 sprockets. It would be nice to be able to buy them individually.
@wiscot what, 2 world tour races happening simultaneously isn’t enough for you?
@ChrisO
I upgraded to 5-speed with Campagnolo Grand Sport derailleur in the mid-1960s and I continue to ride contentedly with that, having always found I could cope with any terrain.
@Mikael Liddy
Have you seen the “highlights” of the Tour of San Luis so far? Flat, flat, flat and . . . . more flat. Weather? Sunny, sunny and sunny. Not enough to get me too worked up yet. Mind you, it was good to see Cadel giving it some welly and scoring the win Down Under. Capped, of course, by another magnificently understated salute. Tommeke was wearing a proper cycling cap on the San Luis podium so that was a highlight too.
I want to see shitty weather, bad roads, the whole of the classics season. Races that 95% of the peloton are using for training just don’t get my juices going.
@sowtondevil
Please tell me you have taken advantage of some modern developments and you’re not still riding wool shorts with real chamois? All leather shoes?
@936adl
Not exactly like your fixie, but when I ride my TSX with DT shifters, I find myself just motoring along in the same gear and let my cadence fluctuate for the simple reason that shifting is harder – this is especially true climbing and climbing out of the saddle.
I find the same with riding pavé, gravel, or CX; cadence just washes into the background and you get the job done in whatever gear you’re in.
We get spoiled by having such wide ranges of closely matched gears, its good to remind yourself that you can ride outside your normal cadence comfort zone.
Also, hashtags are as repellant as emoticons, FYI.
I rode all last year with a 53/39 and 11-23. I am up to an 11-26 this year but will see how that fairs on the hills.
@Gianni
I had understood the issue was bending the chain, and the additional wear of the chain rubbing along the side of the teeth on both the front and back.
I’m happy to hear this is bullshit, because now I can remove my little ring altogether.
@sowtondevil
I’d love to see a photo of that bike and if you still have it, I’d like to see detailed photos of that bike!
Spectacles of indecision, I love it!
interesting documentary on Dutch TV – You can use any cassette you want – when you use mechanical doping à la Fabian…
seeing Rasmussen saying that he feels this goes to far is hilarious!
http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/1387546
@marko I get that.
@frank Just one of the ∞ reasons I won’t be mistaken for him.
@wiscot
I feel the same; I’m 10 speeds all the way through on all bikes now, even the bike with DT shifters (set to friction and gaps are irrelevant).
I like being able to swap wheels between bikes without having to mess about with swapping cassettes as well – not to mention that I find the 10 speed Campa Ergos to be more beautiful than the 11 speed design.
Yes, but those were also freewheels and weighed more than most modern wheels. My cassettes all wore out in the same week last summer, which meant I dropped about a grand on new ones all at once. But that’s the first time I’ve had to change them out. I normally just maintain my drivetrain and replace the chain ever season or so and the blocks last a while.
Campa has a number of spiders and you can get them separately if you really only ride in a few and wear those out. (I am blessed to ride in a town where the terrain variety means I cover almost all of them pretty equally – except maybe the 12 because most of my descents land on a stop sign.
@sowtondevil
Are you the technical director for the UCI by any chance ?
Seriously, that’s pretty impressive. On the same frame too ? How do you maintain the chain and sprockets ? I would have thought just replacement issues would have necessitated an upgrade.
As for indecision, it’s all relative innit. I guess once upon a time someone with n+1 ‘ordinary’ bicycles in their mews house was wrestling with which diameter wheel to ride for the Queen Victoria Silver Anniversary Cup.
@Mikael Liddy
Not for anyone not living down under or in San Luis…
@wiscot
Exactly, my good man.
@frank
as a singlespeeder mtn biker, i find it refreshing and perhaps a bit redemptive that the single ring up front is the sheet now, no doubt selfishly, after taking so much heat for being the neaderathal and told I couldn’t pick out a gear in a cluster any way, the right ring up front nor use rightly that shiftythingy on the R/L handlebars, since I get so confused to easily with all that tecknogoodies. Hell, I don’t even use a front suspension fork, but do love 29r’s
anyway, thats off topic. Buddy and I have discussed often the time frame where it seems that the break off was made, from having to make those choices, and sacrificing the gears to where we are today where we really don’t have to consider that. I think it was the break from the 8spd stuff to the 9spd stuff. I remember having the 52/42 with 12-21 cogset, and it really killed. Since then, there has been concessions made and it doesn’t have to be that way as many have said. I do love the 12t on the low down, and rarely find the need for a 11t, and its really only a pipe dream to consider I have the guns to be truly spinning with the souplesse the 53×11. But the 12t, it s different gear, and at times, possible if but momentarily. I do find though after we went to the 9spd goods, we were able to add that bigger gear, perhaps to the 25t on the granny, and that did really open up a good deal of territory for us, and forget about the new 12spd stuff, its just ridiculous and now there are gears we may rarely need or use, and perhaps it brings us to a moment in time that similarly mirrors what the mtn bikers are doing, in that we really should be able to toss away the small cookie and just ride the 53t up front all day long. Gear inches wise, if not why not???
Please find a link below to an excellent Gear Calculator. Enter your chain ring/sprocket details—select metric units of course—and enjoy:
http://www.gear-calculator.com/#KB=34,50&RZ=11,12,13,14,15,17,19,22,25,28&TF=85&UF=2099&SL=2
@El That’s a handy site.
@Ron
+1. I’m now into season 3 on my #1 (and only) By the end of spring last year, I found that the compact just didn’t work for my legs or the terrain I ride (Prairie flat/foothills of the Canadian Rockies). Due to budgetatus limits, I had consigned myself to a long life of compactedness. Lo and behold, Mrs. TheVid got me a 53/39 for Christmas. Hello flying descents! No more spinning out at 65.
I must say that I don’t really think too much about the details of my cassette. I just ride by feel. If I feel like I’m spinning too much, step up some. If my legs are lugging on a false flat, step it down a notch. Even though I know I have a 12-26, I don’t really know where I spend the most time. After a few long rides though, I could definitely feel the shortcomings of the compact though. Don’t know how I’ll feel about the standard, but I’m sure looking forward to the ice melting of the roads around here…
Since we’re talking about cassettes…On my cx bike I’m having something odd happen, thought maybe someone would know what is up.
When I’m in the biggest cog and shift out one, I get a buzzy BRRRMP sound that I can hear and also feel. SRAM drivetrain. I’ve had this happen when I’m in the biggest cog and try to shift in one more, it doesn’t want to go and chew up my spokes. But now it’s happening when I shift up/out. It of course has to be the chain rubbing on/between the cogs, but I’m not sure why it’s happening, or how to fix it.
Anyone experience this? (sorry to have to include vague comic book sounds!)
@Ron
How recently have you replaced cassette/chain? How big is the biggest cog? Do you hear more noise in the biggest cog than the others when just pedalling? Does it shift perfectly in every other gear, or just in some other gears?
My goal has always been to ride the same gears Jens rides:
11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-12
Rumor is he has the 12 on there for the toughest of climbs. It has never been used.
@frank
Hangs head in shame……
Am I about to get excommunicated?
@Ron
I’m going to jump right in and draw a conclusion without all the facts, Velominati styleee. Facts, as I think Frank once said, they just get in the way….
The noie you hear is the well worn chain skipping right over the well worn teeth of your second to last cog! You feel the slippage and you hear brraaaap then the gear engages. New cassette, new chain. Change your chain more frequently.
@frank
When you’re right you’re right. Spot on. Only maybe more so!
@frank
Agree, many routes I can ride only on the 50, cross chaining too often. You find you can punch over the rollers in the 50 on the low end of the cassette, where you might engage the Spanish flick (Down on the chainrings and cassette in one smoove motion) on a standard crankset.
But it is what I have, and what I have must be ridden.
@Mikael Liddy
And with due respect to the Keepers, wtf with no VSP for TDU?
@Souleur
But the problem is that single rings on MTBs are pretty much useless as all-around bikes. If you’re a lift-jumper, fine. But if you like to actually pedal up that hill as well as down it, single rings are laughably inadequate, and the worst thing that’s happened to mouton biking since someone said the word “Freeride”.
Maybe there aren’t real mountains where you live, and if that’s the case, my sincere condolences. I still run triples now, and am not opposed to doubles, but will never buy into this single ring nonsense. This will vanish as a fad before you can say “bar ends”.
Back on topic – do so few of us even *try* to obey Rule #90? I run 11 speed, and I cross-chain like a mo-fo, because at 50×32 I only very, very rarely have to concede my weakness and inadequacy and drop to the 34. And when I do, my head hangs in shame and a river of filth pours from my lips, and the faces of those I’ve dropped cackle menacingly in the dark echoes of my mind. These are not moments I’m proud of.
That said, I think of my bike as having not 22 speeds, but 12.
1 x 11, and The Gear of Shame.
@ChrissyOne
Instead of arguing the point, and I do ride my (now) 1×9 in the Olympics, I’ll simply ask why you’re “sheep biking” and whether that shouldn’t fall under the Masturbation Principle.
53-39 and 13-29. Small ring sees precious little use in these parts. Might shift to a 12-25 cassette.
@EBruner
Somebody finally cued “The” Young Ones — and Motorhead!
@frank
Chain is, oh, about two weeks old. The cassette is around 6 months old. This is my cross bike so while it sees mud, it gets cleaned after every ride. Also, lower mileage than my road bikes.
It’s an 11×28. Shimano 5700 10-s 105 cassette, KMC XL chain. I only hear it when going from the 28 to the 27 (26?) and it only happens right when I shift, then the chain moves and it’s gone. New Force RD too. Noise is only right when I shift and then ceases.
@PeakInTwoYears
Ew.
@Ron I suspect the jump from the 28 is not to a 27 or 26, but to a 25 or 24. That could be part of the problem right there.
Self portrait
@ChrissyOne
well, you make a valid point, one of opinion, and as a singlespeeder (Merckx forgive me) thats the thing, we simply don’t give a rats ass, and never have quite frankly about the rings up front or etc…as the gear…the one we choose is as critical as the ride we have…and thats all that matters….
vs the minutia of the conundrum that lies in the gear cluster, the many details of the ride that many get swept away with that perhaps are meaningless.
I respect each to his own, but the 1×9 and now 1×10 crowds do have something of merit that the PRO mtn bike riders brought to light, and that is too many gears are simply a repeating pattern of the same thing in another ring/cog and this lends to mis-shifts or cluttering up front for nothing, not to mention the fact that triples are never to be mounted on any bike whatsoever and never.
and BTW, I don’t live in the mtns, as the ozarks/boston mtns here are really fairly flat and just up and down in repeat from ridgetop to hollow to ridgetop, but have ridden the SS on the colorado trail at over 12ooo ft if that counts
@ChrissyOne
Ewe typed it, I didn’t.
@PeakInTwoYears
Baaaaaaahd joke.
@frank
You could do as that little fucker Nick does on his cross bike. (You remember him Frank, that was his skinny ass receding into the distance on the climbs of the VtoV ride last summer) Nick runs a single ring. Can’t cross chain that.
@Beers
We only do VSPs for races that don’t suck.
@unversio
The worst thing you can do is to let your big ego mount a gear combination that your legs can’t push. That’s it.
@TommyTubolare
^^This
@frank
Fair nuf. Figured it would be all World Tour races, wrong. Good Cadel came out yesterday anyway.
@Jamie That’s a single 42 on the ‘cross bike by the way.
Didn’t think I was watching did you? “Little fucker” my ass.
@TommyTubolare
Bold and presumptuous. Been on an 11-21 the past 20 years. It’s just an 11-20. I assumed that we were all focused on what each are willing to push based on first hand experience. Not needing your guidance this time. And apologise if I disapprove of your fully warranted conceit.
I’ll focus on evidence and only offer my experience — not my recommendation. First rule that I understood was that you don’t “tell” anyone how to change their bike.
@Frank
It was one of the details I loved about The Rider: his pre-race worry over what gears to run, how long he might manage to keep going in his current cog before risking his race to an up-shift.
@ChrissyOne Just wait til @Bretto catches wind of that post.
As a hard-core MTBer in the 90’s who is tempted to get an updated machine, I have to say I agree with what I believe your thesis is: most of the innovation in MTBing over the past 20 years has had more to do with going downhill than uphill.