Road Bike Racing - TdF -Gearing

What are the gearing that LA is riding in the mountain stages?

With Lance's legs... probably a straight block. :) Actually I believe I heard from one year (2001?) he had a 11-23 for the mountain stages. Me? I'm running a 12-27 in the rear and sometimes wish I had lower gearing. :)

Michael Rodgers said he would try a 11-23 in the mountains but I would hazard a guess that some of the (weaker) riders are using 25's on the back especially the ones that are 25 minutes down at the end of every mountain stage. No point busting your knees if you aren't in contention.

CHEERS.

Mark

Originally posted by khuon
Me? I'm running a 12-27 in the rear and sometimes wish I had lower gearing. :)

I should add that in no way should the above statement be misconstrued to imply that I'm riding the TdF. :D

What about the front? They are still pedalling at 100kmh so they must have meaty chainrings!

Brendon

Originally posted by NZLcyclist
What about the front? They are still pedalling at 100kmh so they must have meaty chainrings!

39/53 is the standard combo though I did read that Tyler is running a 36/52 since he has to do most of his climbing seated.

Zack

Tyler is running a 36/52 in the mountains!! The 36t had to be flown in special from Japan. Because of his cracked clavicle he can't spend a lot of time "dancing" out of the saddle, so he's relegated to spinning up the mountains.

What kind of group is Hamilton using? I bet that a 36 front and good sized rear, maybe as large as 30, would really be a great setup for a lot of us who aren't ready for the tour.

From the LA web-site FAQ


His usual rear gearing is 11-21 but sometimes he'll go 11-23 depending upon the difficulty - in training it's 12-25 and it's always a 53/39 up front.

Didn't see any specifics about Le Tour.

A 36 front ring? Last I heard it could not be built to fit a road crank. I have always been told a 38 was the smallest.

Straight from LA's website - http://www.lancearmstrong.com/lance/online2.nsf/htmltdf02/tech

Quite a few questions have come in about the gearing that LA uses during the Tour. He runs a standard Dura-Ace front setup of 53/39, and in the back he usually rides an 11-21 on the flat stages, or perhaps a 12-23; when the road tips up, he will drop to a 12-25. Some of the other members of the Postal squad will take advantage of the 12-27 to make the spin into the finish, after their work to support Lance ends, as easy on their legs as possible, so they can power for Lance the next day.

Also, I recall last year during the final ITT that Lance threw on a 55 tooth chainring to make sure he had the speed.

As to Hamilton and his special gear, considering the support Shimano/Campy gives those guys a special one-off type deal isn't to hard to imagine, hell they could have built him a special spider to fit a smaller ring, I was reading last night some other sites and the amount of money companies spend on special equipment for the tour is just astounding. For instance helmet companies literally spend hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars to build the special aero helmets for the tour, and some of them never go on sale (the Posties special helmet design is owned by LA and isn't available to anybody else for instance).

Andrew

Originally posted by FOG
What kind of group is Hamilton using? I bet that a 36 front and good sized rear, maybe as large as 30, would really be a great setup for a lot of us who aren't ready for the tour.

A number of BF posters, including me, use cyclocross type cranksets with 110 mm bolt circle diameter instead of the regular 130 mm for road bikes. This allows the use of smaller chainrings which avoids using a triple. I am running 48/34 up front and anywhere from a 14/25 to a 14/34 in back. If you put on anything bigger than 27 or 28 in back you need a mtb type rear der such as LX or XT.
Regards,
Raymond

Originally posted by RainmanP
If you put on anything bigger than 27 or 28 in back you need a mtb type rear der such as LX or XT.

Doesn't Campy have a rear cluster that goes to 29. I think you might be able to do up to 30T on their rear derailleurs.

Shimano derailleurs can do more than the official capacity. For example, I use an Ultegra short cage derailleur. I did some climbs in the Pyrenees some years ago with a 53/39 in front and a customized 12-30t. in the rear. No problem, just make sure you don't shift to 53t. in front when the rear is still on 30t. I did it once at the top of a climb and the gear got completely stuck. Had to take out my rear wheel, shift to 27t. in the rear and get the wheel back in :)

Khuon is, or course, correct. I tend to think in Shimano where, nominally, DA short cage rear der max is 27, triple rear max is 28. One can probably run up to about 30. When I want more than 28 I put on an LX or XT rear.

I'm still curious... it looks like Jan was grinding up those hills like nobody's business. Does anyone know what kind of gearing he uses? He looks like he just depends on power a lot, which is surprising considering his blown knee. I would have thought he would have started using those smaller gears by now and started spinning his way up those hills.

he was spinningup the hills today and yesterday. Don't judge his cadence by Lance's because Lance has an unusually high cadence. By Ullrish std', Jan was spinning.