Latif

I fit into the mid 60's bad knees from construction been riding for just a few years category. We have a hill just outside my door, Fickle Hill, that is about 8 miles with three or four significant 12-18% sections which I couldn't tackle for the first year and that with road bike with SRAM apex 50-34, 11-32.I'm only around 150# and assumed that my years of construction work would have had me in good enough shape to take that hill but I had little aerobic capacity and not so strong legs as it turns out. The light damage to my knees has actually improved during my 3 cycling years I think thanks to having decent gearing.I picked up a used steel bike with shimano 9sp triple, 52-39-30, 12-25 cassette. I changed just the 30t inner for a 26t, very inexpensive, and the cassette to a 12-27 and it's a now a wonderful climbing machine and I can cruise all day on the middle ring and it shifts well despite the warnings of my LBS mechanics. I do wish I had that 16t at times but the limits of my 9sp come into play, at least as far as commercially available cassette offerings. I wouldn't mind trading the 12 for a 16 as I rarely use the 12 as it is.

My confidence in being able to take on that hill has really helped with my conditioning and I do find myself pushing harder gears but often fall back to my grannies when I need the break. Obviously a big triple fan here, fits my m.o. perfectly. Good luck in your search, whatever you need is doable and may not be too costly if you started with a triple.

Black wallnut 

I out weigh the OP, am short and 51 years old and do not have issues riding up sustained steep grades with either 34x28 or 36x30. The part those that tout the benefits of triples and tightly spaced cogs miss is the hole is one two gear jump in the middle of the cassette. On my 12-26 I have a 16 cog On my 12-30 I don't. The main difference is in the three largest cogs.

Buy what works for you OP. Get a 34 or 36 tooth cassette and derailleur that can handle it. IIRC there is a active thread right now in the mechanics forum describing what someone else has done. Buy a carbon frame and build it to your specs with a road triple might be the best option for you. It also might be possible that if you ride more you might not need the extra gearing. Only you know. Do you have a way to try the 34x30 without buying? You might be surprised what you can do.

D1andonlyDman

I don't miss the part about the two gear jump, I just find it completely insignificant, and absolute non-issue in my riding. One of my two main rides is an older steel bike with a 13-28 7 speed freewheel that has two tooth jumps between the 5 smallest cogs, and then a 3 and a 4 tooth jump to the two biggest cogs. That spacing is absolutely perfect for me, and i have no problem altering my cadence by +/- 5-7% without any discomfort at all to deal with it if I need to.

My other main ride is has a 9-speed 12-27, and I really don't find the fact that the 4 smallest cogs have only 1 tooth spacing to be an improvement. I would much rather skip the 12 cog entirely, start at 13, and add a 30 at the top end instead of having 4 gears with 1-Tooth spacing at the other end of the cassette.

Frankly, I find the 1 tooth jumps to be too small to be of all that much use, and when I'm riding that cassette in the area of 1-tooth jumps, I tend to shift two cogs when I wish to shift, just to get enough differential in the gearing to notice the difference.

And BTW, the OP already has an issue with his existing ride and the 34/34 combo low gear on the brutal Hicks North climb he cited originally. And the issue is, his knees, not his conditioning. Riding more doesn't make that get better, and pushing bigger gears actually will make it get worse. I have intermittent knee issues, and when mine acts up, the only way I can keep riding through it is to move from my higher performing bikes to my "mountain goat" and go slower by virtue of riding lower gearing on the same grades that I can ride in higher gears when my knee is not acting up.

simplybao

Just thought I'd chime in. Last year I was riding a Giant Escape with a 9 sp. 48-36-24 crank and 11-34 cassette. For this season, I decided to go with a 10 sp. compact double 50-34 and 12-36. I don't think I have quite the hills around here as the one that that OP describes, but I live atop a cat 5 climb that I have to ride to get home. I know, a cat 5 isn't much, but having that super low granny was nice on those days I wasn't feeling it.

That said, after riding this year with my new setup, I've gotten used to the gearing and I can ride up my hill in the 34-36 combo just fine. In fact, it seems as easy as it did with my low granny gear. Perhaps I'm in better shape this year, or my body adjusted. I just go slow. Somewhere along the way, I figured out that I'm not in a race and I'll make it up the hill when I make it up.

My new bike is lighter (by 5 lbs) and it does seem like it climbs easier. My point is, how do you know until you try? If you don't like it, you can always swap out parts. You can get a triple 10 sp. ultegra road crank and do an 11-36 SRAM cassette with a 9 sp. MTB RD. That will give you some crazy low gearing. But I understand your dilema in that you don't want to shell out 2K for a bike then have to "fix" it. This is the reason I built my bike frame up. I bought the frame and bought the parts that I wanted. It was more expensive, but to me, it was more fun.

You have to be careful about mixing and matching parts though. 10 sp. Road shifters will work with 9 sp. MTB derailleurs, but once you try to go with 10 sp. MTB Derailleurs and road shifters, it won't work -- I'm only speaking of Shimano here. I understand that SRAM MTB and Road parts are interchangeable. For instance, I'm running Ultegra shifters, DA FD, DA compact double, Sram 12-26 Cassette, and XTR 9 sp. MTB RD. It shifts great, but the downside is that I have some crazy wide gear spacing. It's a price I'm willing to pay to have the compact double instead of the triple.

fietsbob

Did the Mt Tamalpais Hill climb , an organized event, Up From Stinson beach start, in the 80's, with a 52-36 double and 13-28t 6 speed Freewheel.

Now My Road bike Has a 50-40-24t triple ..

pdlamb

From the sound of the OP, part of his problem was that his LBS didn't have stock bikes with a triple. (How can they sell that stuff without low gears most people need? Well, he bought one, didn't he?)

I'd suggest asking around for touring bikes. For stock bikes with low gears, they seem to be the only game in town right now. There's so much talk about doubles, and missing middle gears, that "normal" road bikes end up being sold to/for boy-racer-wannabe's. The downside is that you'll add a few pounds to the weight of the bike, but you can get lower gears that will let you climb steep, long-ish climbs.

If you need the extra low gears, you can probably adjust your cadence to make up for a missing 16 cog. (Who even knows about it, except people with no life who spend their evenings counting cogs?) Wear out a couple of tires on the touring bike, and you can replace them with lighter tires. You might not win the Tour de X, but you'll be enjoying the climbs a lot more.

Looigi

Why would that be? What conflict of interest the LBS would have? The two LBSs I commonly deal with would do their best to be straight up with advice and accommodate the customers needs.

Mongoeric

I figured I'd chime in because I recently went through the same thing.

My Marinoni Turismo had a compact front and an 11/36 in the rear. I am 62 years old and a big man, 6'1", 250. Other than being over weight, I am in good shape, averaging between 3 -4,000 miles a year.

This gearing worked fine, even here in Vermont until I went on the Pacific Coast route, self contained with camping gear. I did all the hills and had no knee pain, but my son who went with me had a touring triple and I spend many hours looking enviously at him spinning up hills. This year I am going from Quebec City to Gaspe and apparently the hills are more challenging than the Pacific coast. I didn't have to make a change but smaller gearing would increase the enjoyment and decrease the probability of knee problems.

I just converted my bike to a touring triple. I had about 15,000 miles on my old components so I didn't think they owed me anything. I can't report on the change yet, but will agree wholeheartedly that the lack of a 'sub-compact' road double on crankest should be more widely available. I see so many riders grinding up hills. Just like wider tires, more spin friendly gearing should become more common.

As to advice, I don't know where your budget is and how much time you spend on the bike. For me, getting what I want and like on the bike is important. Buying a frame and adding the parts that work for you is clearly more expensive than buying a stock bike, but between improved fit, the fun (for me) of specing out all the parts and the joy with the end product, buying a frame and doing a custom build should not be discounted.

Good luck.

zonatandem

Sugggest getting a triple and 11/34 cassette.
Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it!

Am 82 years old and my knees (after 300,000+ miles of cycling singles and tandems) are still fine.
However my speed and distance has decreased by about 50%. Still ride 100 +/- miles a week.
Yes, have climbed/raced Mt. Lemmon in AZ but I was only 46s then and the oldest guy riding the event, and placed third.

Fastfwd01

I'm searching for posts on this topic to see what people have to say. I thought I might just take it easy up Mt. Lemmon while on vacation last week with this same setup 52/36 and 12/28 and it kicked my butt! I'm certainly not blaming my bike for it. I should have taken the challenge more seriously and trained accordingly, but instead I had been taking it easy the last couple months of this year after the season wound down. I gained a few pounds too. I don't really have any hills here to speak of to train on - I would have to drive over an hour away to get to a place to train climbing.

I only made it about a thousand feet up and called it quits. Disappointing. I probably should have laid off the green chilies too before attempting it. Whew!

Garfield Cat

Why do some of these discussions end up referring to underwear?

moses1489

u for real dude? 34x34 and ur having trouble? i dont care how much u weigh, 34x34 is joke. u need to get out of the saddle more buddy.

fietsbob

You Win By climbing on the Big Ring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnX4uaDYyIU

Drew Eckhardt 

The overwhelming majority of riders lack professionals' mutant genetics and access to performance enhancing drugs allowing that.

If I was good for even 5.5W/kg not 3.6W/kg I could use a 59 ring with the same cog I pair with a 39; or 53x23 where it takes 39x26.

Retro Grouch 

That's what I think too. OP appears to know the gearing that he wants.

Walk into any LBS and ask them what they can do for you. If they don't have an adequate answer, simply walk away and try the next one.

The customer has no obligation to please the bike shop staff in any way. The bike shop staff earns their money by making him happy.

kickstart

I commute on a Dutch bike that weights around 70 lbs loaded, I'm 205, there's a mile long 15% hill I climb each day, and I can't "get out of the seat". It's not an epic effort to climb the hill, but its still real work even on my road bike, and not something to be made light of.

Miele Man

Interestingly enough i'd like a lower gear with my square taper Tiagra 52-42 cranks or my square taper FSA 52-42-30 cranks. Yesterday i discovered that both my Tiagra and FSA cranks have the exact same inner bolt circle that'll accept a Shimano 24 teeth chainring. I didn't realize the Tiagra was a triple capable crank until I pulled it off the bike and saw the chain ring bolts for the innermost chainring.

A small inner chainring and perhaps a new rear mech will be the way to go?

Cheers

andr0id

To be gentle, ( and this is coming from a 55 year old, 185 lb guy that is pretty fit) you don't have an equipment problem, you have a mental problem. You think that hills can be made to be "easy" with the right gearing. It's not possible. When you start to haul over 200 lbs of bike and rider up a 10, 15 or 20% grade, there is no magic gear and you are going to suffer. You can suffer for little while in a 34x28 or a little longer in a 34x32 or even longer in some MTB granny combo. The point is, the suffering is going to happen.

It sounds like you know how to work hard, so accept and embrace that you're going to suffer going up hills and then put the exact gears on the bike that lets you get to the top. No more, no less.