Originally Posted by thatguy
You've obviously never raced 'cross.
My current cross bike came stock with 48/39... The one it replaced had 48/38
Most of the bikes I looked at came stock with something pretty similar. When I was looking at new cross bikes I did see some with compact cranksets (50/34), but I never saw a 46/34 before.
I think manufacturers wouldn't sell stock cyclo cranksets with that gearing for the very same reason that OP is complaining about. The gearing gets a little slack when you want to hammer.