Originally Posted by Bacciagalupe
I finally bought the bullet and picked up an old steel road bike, mostly to do LD rides (100 - 150 miles). The bike feels pretty smooth, but the gearing is pretty high -- in gear inches, it's roughly 43" - 110". Plus the tires are pretty ancient.
What do y'all recommend for gearing and tires? I'm figuring that 35" - 100" will be sufficient. I don't know much about 700c tires, although I'm figuring that fast 25's (with reflective sidwalls) will do the trick.
Any thoughts / suggestions?
- B
Suggest you obtain and read the Bicycle Quarterly articles on tires. A partial read is available at
http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/i...qgrandbois.jpg
BQ shows that well-made "fat" (e.g., 700x32) tires can be as fast or faster than narrower tires like 700x25. And the 700x32's provide much better shock absorbency, which is a huge plus on long rides. I've been riding Panaracer Pasela 700x32's for the last several brevets. They feel comfortable, they feel fast, and I knocked nearly an hour off my personal best time for a 200K (despite rain and bitter cold).
As to gearing, on BMB I rode a 22/32/44 MTB crankset and an 11-34 SRAM cassette. There was never a point where I wished I had a gear higher than 44x11. There was also never a time when I felt like the 22x34 was too high to continue riding, though several times I got off just to have a change. The most recent issue of BQ has an article on efficient randonneuring that points out that above about 28 mph, there is very little gain to pedaling hard because air resistance rises so rapidly with speed. Since a 44x11 puts you at 29 mph at 90 rpm, there isn't much point in getting higher gearing. To me, the only point to avoiding lower gearing (e.g., by buying something that has a small chainring up in the low 30's) is just to keep yourself from dropping into the low gears when you're really exhausted.