KenCarlson

Hello all! No question here, just a story.

I did a 48 mile ride yesterday during somewhat of a windstorm. Wind was out of the west/south-west. I mostly rode south on my way out of town and then north on my way back home. Major crosswinds that had me battling to keep the bike upright, especially during gusts. At one point when I headed west for a short distance more or less directly into the wind, all I was able to manage was 10-12 mph. Quite a workout to do that. The interesting part came at my turn-around point where I turned east for 1 mile before heading north again to go back home. I knew I was in for a ride since I'd be going with the wind, plus it was slightly downhill to boot. Up until this point I couldn't hear much of anything due to all the wind noise. Once I turned east and got up to around 30 mph, everything got *real* quiet, so I was apparently traveling about what the windspeed was. I always think that's so cool how you can be going so fast with the wind but you hear absolutely no wind noise. So I told myself, "hey, let's see what I can make this bike do in these conditions!" Turns out I managed to spin out my 52/12 top gear, something that only rarely happens, and only on the steepest downhill runs. Cyclometer says my max speed was 43 mph during that run. I'm a spinner (95-105 preferred cadence range), plus not all that strong of a rider (18 mph average on 50-mile rides, 20 mph on short 10 mile rides), so the small cog end of my cassette doesn't get used as much as the big cog end.

A year and a half ago I had switched out my 11/28 cassette for a 12/27 since I virtually never used the 11 cog with a 52 big ring (although it did get used with the 39 middle ring on my triple). I much prefer to have the 16 cog that's in the 12/27 that is missing in the 11/28. So yesterday I found out the one case where the missing upper range mattered. To do the math, that is 1 mile out of 3000 miles I've ridden since swapping the cassette, so that is 0.03% of my riding where I could have used the 11 cog. I figure that's a pretty good tradeoff for getting the 16 cog right smack in the middle of my cassette which probably gets used on 100% of my rides.

Since there is always so much talk here about which cassettes to use and whether to change chainrings and whatnot, I thought I'd add one anecdote to help people figure those things out. Although we're getting a little bit of snow tonight, so I think outdoor road riding around here is drawing to a close for this season. Time to break out the studs on my hybrid. Happy riding everyone!

-Ken

striknein

No, it's the other definition of "mechanics."

Bill Kapaun

There is no "one best cassette".
People come in too many different categories.
My highest gear is 36:12 and I have yet to use it except on the work stand.

surreal

I agree re: the value of having options for cassettes. Being able to choose from several gearing options to best suit the rider, the bike in question, and the intended terrain is a convenience that I'm very appreciative of. The cassette is relatively cheap and quick to remove/install, so that's where I conduct my real-world gearing experiments.

As for not rocking the 36:12, though.... that's an 80" gear on a 700c bike! I understand you got mountains over there, but I'm guessing the roads go both up and down the hills, right?

Bill Kapaun

I don't do hills.
It's just a matter of being 65 years old, bad knee, bad back & emphysema.
I normally "cruise" in 32:13

ThermionicScott 

Cool! I've pared down the high gears on my bikes as well because the occasions that I was spinning out the top gears were few and far between. Every so often I find myself going down a steep hill, or with a strong tailwind where I wish I had a higher gear, but it passes soon enough that I don't get too annoyed. It's much nicer to have closer gears in the range that I use most often.

surreal

I hear ya. So, what's the chainset on your main rig? Do you have a 36/32/26 triple or something?

unterhausen

one winter I rode 25 miles to the south into a brutal headwind. Didn't have enough food or any money, so I bonked badly. I probably should have made the call of shame, but the tailwind was too good to pass up. The last hill before my house isn't all that steep, but it's a bit of work. That day I could coast. I don't think I've ever spun out my 50/11. I wish I could get a 12 or even 13 in the cassette I want.

Kimmo 

Good move. I'd advise the 12-27 over an 11-28 to 99% of riders.

Damn straight.

Most folks will spend most of their time (the vast majority of it if they don't wear lycra) under 35km/h; with a 23mm tyre that's 95rpm on 39/13. My big ring and FD are mostly cosmetic.

cny-bikeman

It's great to have someone with a real-world situation illustrate the lack of need for super high gears. Many riders do not think in a global way about the impact of going to an 11 tooth cog (even 12 is crazy for 99% of the riders if you're running a 50+ chainring). That high gear is going to be useful primarily on downhill runs, and the cost of adding 3 mph is huge due to the increased impact of wind resistance. It's much more sensible to just tuck down and save energy for the uphill, where the same effort yields a greater increase in speed. Further, that jump to an 11 or 12 tooth spreads out the other gears, so that one is less able to match cadence to load.

Bill Kapaun

22-32-36.
It was a 22-32-44 originally.
It's just a cheap FSA crank set, but it had 165mm arms which are far more important to my knee than any bling value.
I typically run a 12-23 9speed cassette, but swap cogs and make it a 13-23 for cold weather. I find the 18T to be useful in the cold & wind.
There's times (rare) that the headwinds are bad enough I'm on the granny. The close spaced gears get extremely useful in those conditions.
With my emphysema, I can't mash without "gassing out". Being able to spin a narrow cadence range works far best for me.
On July 31st, I did 70 miles on a hybrid!

surreal

Good for you; I imagine 70 miles on a hybrid you're comfortable with is easier than 70 miles on a roadie that you're not comfy with...
Re: the chainset....
Interesting, and totally makes sense to just take the older standard mtb triple and shrink the big ring. I've got my own health problems (mostly, just overweight), but I tend to like mashing over spinning. If I climb a hill in a very light gear, I tire myself out far more quickly....I prefer to stand and mash at right around the biggest ratio that can still get over the hill. To each, his own.

Sorry for all the questions; I just love hearing about bike mods/adaptations designed for riders' physical needs, beyond those intended to maximize "race" performance...Yours seems like a logical and frugal approach to an ultra-compact triple.

Bill Kapaun

5 minutes in the drops of a road bike and I won't be able to stand straight the rest of the day. Probably part of the next day too.

HillRider

I also see no need for an 11T road cassette for most riders. For the once-a-year it might be useful it is dead weight the remainder of the time and replaces a far more useful cog. Those who say they want to pedal downhill with a tail wind would probably go faster still by tucking in out of the wind and reducing their air resistance instead.

I'm also a big fan of the 16t cog and use it a great deal of the time. My favorite cassettes are Shimano's 12x27 10-speed and Campy's 13x29 10-speed because they have the 16T. Both of these cassettes are no paired with 105 Triple cranks and 50/39/26 chainrings which provide high gears of 112 gear inches and 104 gear-inches and these are plenty for me. In fact, the 12T on the Shimano rarely gets used and a 13x30 would be a better choice if they offered it.

dbg

And I'm experimenting with smaller chainrings while keeping 11's and 12's in the back --and liking it. Straight bar setup with 44 top chainring (32-22 also) and 12-23 rear, and new experiment on a 2x10 roadie with sub-compact 42-26 front and 11-28 rear. I have high hopes for the sub-compact setup.

HillRider

OK, you are achieving a reasonable top gear with an 11T or 12T cog by reducing the chainring sizes. My only comment is that you will have faster wear with the smaller rings and cogs. MTB's have gone this way to obtain obstacle clearance since smaller chainrings clear rocks and logs better but road bikes don't have this problem.

dbg

Very good point. I still expect to use the smaller cassettes way less than the middles and was figuring this might distribute cassette wear more evenly. We'll see (not in heavy use yet).

ThermionicScott 

When reducing my top gear, I went first to 13-X cassettes, then smaller big rings -- my road bike has a 48/39 double with 13-23 cassette, and the "rando" bike has a 48/38 double with 13-28 cassette. I really like this setup, because it solves the problem of having rarely-usable top gears and doesn't exasperate wear (in fact, may help because I can spend more time in the equivalent combinations using the big ring.) That 48T gets a lot more use than a 53T would in my hands.

SethAZ 

Hah, I've ridden in such winds myself, and it's awesome to be doing over 30 mph with low wind noise because of the raging tailwind.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Strava KOMs in my area that will only be beaten on a day with a raging tailwind, because they were set on such a day. I should know, because I hold a couple of them myself, and they are a good 5-6 mph faster than I could ever manage on a calm day.

As for the gearing, I couldn't possibly agree more. I just went through a lot of the same thoughts, and I switched from my 53/39 standard crank to a 50/34 compact, and have bought two different cassettes. My bike is a 9-speed, and came with a 12/25. I bought a 12/27 to help with a Mount Olympus-like mountain climb we wanted to do. For that climb the 12-27 was great, but for general use in the relatively flat roads I typically ride on, not so much. That 15-17-19 gap is right smack in the middle of the range I typically ride in.

So I just went with a 13/25 cassette. It inserts the 16t I've been missing so much. Being a 9-speed, I still can't fill that 18t gap unless I go with a 13/23, which is a good possibility, or else else go with a 14/25. I've been paying close attention to my highest-speed rides, including on some group rides that included some downhill, and I think I would probably miss the 13t too much, so 14/25 is probably not gonna happen. I may end up buying a cheap Tiagra-level 13/23 here soon, and have the best possible flat-land cassette.

Still, going from 13/25 to 13/23 will be well into the point of diminishing returns. While I do miss that 18t, getting the 16t really helped smooth out those shifts, and I might miss the 25t on that occasional climb more than I'm currently missing the 18t.

Still, I'll definitely be swapping between the 13/24 and the 12/27 when I go with a group planning a crazy mountain climb or something. It's nice that cassettes take like 2 minutes to swap out. I like the flexibility.

The sad thing is that almost nobody else that I ride with cares to think through this stuff and understand their gearings. It especially sucks when they're struggling up some mighty climb and they've got a 12/23 or something and could benefit so much just by swapping out a relatively cheap cassette for that ride.

Chris_W

Do you realize that you're wasting energy with that gear? You start to loose efficiency with all cogs smaller than about 15 teeth, with the loss being pretty large for 11 and 10-tooth cogs. I'd recommend at least using your 36:15 instead. Also, from what I've read, the effect of cog size on efficiency is much greater than the effect of cross-chaining.

HillRider

Several years ago I created a couple of Shimano 13x27 9-speed cassettes by buying a 13T first position cog and a 16T single cog, replacing the 12 and 13T cogs on a 12x27 9-speed and adding the 16T and a spacer. I still have one of these in service but that approach is pretty much dead now as 16T individual cogs in any configuration (8, 9 or 10-speed) aren't available any more.

A more expensive method is to buy both 13x25 9-speed and 12x27 9-speed cassettes and replace the 21,23,25 cog cluster on the 13x25 with the 21, 24,27 cluster from the 12x27.

Bill Kapaun

I probably realize much more than you do since it's my bike and my body!
1. My BB is a bit longer than "ideal", just to give me a better chain line on the middle ring and smaller cogs. Going to the 36:15 would cross chain worse than you think.
2. Most my riding is around town where I seldom can go more than 6 blocks without a stop sign/light.
3. the front shift from middle to big isn't all that great, since the FDER is designed for a 42/44T large ring. My other bike (86 Rockhopper with rack, fenders, baskets & skinny tires) has the identical set up except a 38T large ring which shifts perfectly.
4. When I get out of the city where I can ride for a longer distance without stops, I do go to the largest ring if I don't have a head wind. Around town, it's much easier to uses it as a 1X9.

As far as efficiency, refer to post 11 in this thread.

SethAZ 

Sounds perfectly reasonable. For now I've got a 12/25, 12/27, and 13/25 to choose from, and since it only takes like 2 minutes to swap a cassette, I'm going to just swap as needed (which won't be all that often really). I think the 12/25 has seen its last use, however, as the 13/25 eliminates the all but useless (to me) 12t for a much more useful 16t, so there's no reason to go back. I'll put the 12/27 back on for that occasional massive mountain ride, but for the hills I'll be doing most often, the 13/25 in combination with the 34t small ring up front is more than adequate.

HillRider

Well, instead of swapping the entire 13x25 for the 12x27 with the possibility that the chain won't like the new cassette, consider doing what I did and just swap the largest three cogs. In fact, you may like the 13x27 so much you will just leave it there for all riding. After all, the only difference is in the largest two cogs.

SethAZ 

I'll have to sit down with the two and see which cogs are attached as a group and which ones are loose. Your idea is a good one, and one I've thought of before, too.

Still, though, that 2-minute switchover is hard to beat, and I know my chain likes both cassettes because I've ridden both of them with it already.

To be honest, I am pretty happy with my gearing right now, but there's only so much one can do with a 9-speed if one wants to cover the full range from "downhill with a tailwind" all the way up to "holy crap, I'm climbing Mount Everest!" while simultaneously maintaining the nice close shifts. When I return from a military deployment I have coming next year, my plan is to buy a new bike, and it will almost certainly have an 11-speed Shimano Ultegra Di2 gruppo. I've already been salivating over the gearing options that will present, if I can find a cassette with exactly what I want. I'm thinking something like 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-22-24-26, or perhaps 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25-27.