JAMES_AMTRAK

So I have been riding for all of six months. I have a madone 5.2 with a 50/34 crankset. I seem to be a natural spinner but when it comes to pushing harder gears not that great. So I have a few questions for you BF gurus on maybe switching to a more standard size crankset.

1) since I have only been riding a compact 50/34 since i started 6 months ago could that explain why i naturally spin alot more than a normal racer/rider?

2) using a compact 50/34 have somehow hindered me from being stronger with the harder gears than I could of been using a standard

3)If I switch to a standard crankset which I dont even know what to get, what impacts/results in my strength and speed would I see? could it actually help me, will it make me stronger/faster?

4)when i do switch how bad will i stuggle with it? am i gonna be slower at first?

anything you guys would like to add about switching pro/cons would be great.

I live in florida im a small guy if that helps the discussion

ColinL

No, the chainrings themselves do not hinder you. A 2x10 drivetrain has less flexibility than a 3x10, that's obvious, but in Florida I doubt you would use the granny ring on a triple anyway.

I have noticed lot of people riding 15-18mph who complain that there is too big of a gap from their 34 to 50 chainrings, and sometimes they 'solve' it by installing a 53/39, 52/36 or 52/38 and simply never use the big ring except downhill. I don't think that's the best answer but it can work.

Another thing could be that your cassette is not ideal. What are you riding now, and where are you noticing problems with cadence & effort?

Homebrew01

See above

Do you ever use your lowest gears ? If not then you could get a narrower range cassette or larger inner ring so you have fewer "wasted" gears, but that will have nothing to do with how strong you are. That is in the muscles.

adclark

Shift to 1 or 2 harder gears on your cassette and you have essentially changed the gearing ratio to what you would get if you were in the original cog in the back and had a full double. How often are you actually in the smallest cog in back and the large chainring in front?

ericm979

Get a 38t inner ring and an 11-25 cassette.

gregf83 

It's a bit mind boggling that you managed to get through 10 races without figuring out how your gears work...

eminefes

I also live in Florida. Assuming you have an 11 tooth cog on your cassette, I highly doubt you are out-spinning a 50x11.

At just a standard 90 rpm, that's already 32 mph. Crank that up to a more lively 100 rpm and you're at 35.5 mph. Then when you're really spinning at 120 rpm, it's 42.6 mph.

Is that fast enough for you on a flat road?

Seattle Forrest

If you switch your chain rings out, you'll probably wind up finding gears on the new setup that give you almost the same number of chain inches as you had before, and mostly riding them.

deacon mark

What your cassette is in the back is what matters. I have one bike 50/34 with an 11-23. The other stand 53/39 has a 12-25. Essentially the same with more space on the high and low than the standard double. Run the gear ratios to tell you. I live in the flats and on the compact use the big ring 85-90 % of the time. I use the smaller ring on the standard much more. Unless a huge headwind on the compact I probably would never use the small. In the mountians this would change.

gundom66

Not sure what gear you're using to have that "natural spin" I don't even know what rpm is considered as a natural spin... 80, 90, 100, 110? If you are spinning naturally, let's say at 90 rpm using a 50 front and 17 back, and you're having a harder time with your higher gears, then you need to go higher from 17 back to, 16 or 15 until your legs get used to pushing the new gear at 90 rpm. You do that consistently, then you can move on to the next higher gear and do the same... until you get to 50x11 at 90 rpm. Once you achieve that goal, you can start pushing for a higher cadence. Once you start pushing 100, 110, or 120 rpm on a Compact and feel that you're no longer exceeding those numbers, then you can safely change your crank to a Standard Double. Whether it'll be a 53/39 or 52/36. Then rinse and repeat whatever you did with the 50/34 training.

In other words, the 50/34 is not a hindrance at all. You just need to train on it to get those higher gears more easier for you.

greatnate

I started racing this year on a compact setup, 50/34 up front, and 12-25 in the back. I switched to a standard double (53/39) crank set because in the last lap of a race, I didn't have the option of dropping to a smaller cog to slow my legs down. After I switched to a standard, as the pace really started picking up I found I could drop to smaller cog temporarily and let my breathing recover just a bit before the final 2-300 meters. I'm not sure this is good advice for you, but for me at least, it helped and I didn't want to switch back.

adclark

Just curious why you didn't try an 11t in back instead of changing the crank? You would have actually gotten a harder gear than changing the front to a 53 and keeping the same cassette.

himespau 

+1 as cassettes are generally cheaper than cranksets. but maybe there's something about the spacing you just liked about your cassette.

Minion1

Spinning is no bad thing, but like the Simpsons teach us, all spin and no strength work make Homer something something. You can do strength work/intervals on a compact, but might benefit from a smaller tighter range cassette if where you live is flat.

JAMES_AMTRAK

No im riding a 12-25. I am not out spinning, people think I am over spinning. I ride at a high rpm and when I have to mash more I struggle. My whole question was are there benefits to me switching to a standard crank. Is there any advantages strength wise to switching or race wise.

JAMES_AMTRAK

This exactly the answers I was looking for

gundom66

You need to remember one thing though, maintaining a cadence of 90 rpm on a 50x11 I believe is at a Pro-level. As what eminefes stated, at that gear you're going around 32 mph. I noticed when watching TdF, everytime a cameraman focuses on the cogs, it's always at the 4th or the 3rd to the smallest gear while at a 53T. Not sure what their cadence are either, but I believe you're looking at a 53x13 or 53x14 gearing. So imagine at 80 rpm with a 53x13 is already at a speed of 25.5 mph. Imagine how much faster you'd be going on a flat if you were doing a much higher cadence even if you were on a Compact. So my advice is that your body can only take so much, and if you're redlining, don't overexert and think that the Compact is hindering you at all. The highest gears are mainly used for downhill, but if you really have to give yourself a goal of doing at least 90 rpm on a 50x11... then let that be your goal.

oldbobcat

The main advantage of standard gearing is a smoother drivetrain with less friction and chain wear. Larger cogs mean more chain is in contact with the cogs, distributing the force across more area.

gregf83 

So how exactly does a 53-16 combination produce less wear than a 50-15? I think you're mistaken.

Drew Eckhardt 

No. Some people spin more by preference or physiology.

You can spin the same 100 RPM around 21.8 MPH regardless of whether you're using a 53x19, 50x18, 39x14, or 34x12 (the latter will cause your cadence to drop to 98 which is effectively the same).

No. It's not hurting you unless you're running out of gear when sprinting 39, 42, or 47 MPH depending on whether you're using a 13, 12, or 11 starting cog respectively.

If you're running out of gear before going that fast you need to work on your spin.

None.

With a 50 big ring the cogs are about like having one more tooth on a 53 ring. With the same cassette your hardest gear is one easier.

With a 34 small ring the cogs are about like having an extra 2 (small) - 4 (big) teeth on a 39 ring. With the same cassette your easiest gear is one easier and you (assuming a reasonably spaced cassette) loose your two hardest gears on the small ring.

This can be good. Lets say I'm a spinner stuck in the nine speed era, need a gear like 42x28, 39x26, 34x23, or 30x21 to get me over anything local mountains with acceptable fatigue the next day, and am not going to have much use for anything bigger than 53x14 or 50x13 (if I'm going faster down hill I'll just tuck). I could run 53-39 with Campagnolo's only 9 speed cassette starting with a 14 cog, the 14-15-16-17-19-21-23-25-28 but would be missing an 18 where 53x18 is a pretty nice cruising gear around 21-23 MPH where you'd like to stay on your big ring and wouldn't gain anything from the 28 cog. 53-39x13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23 has the 18 but the smallest gear is a bit hard and largest gear more than needed. 53-39x13-14-15-16-17-19-21-23-26 has the required smallest gear but omits the 18 for a harder biggest gear than needed. With 50-34x13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23 I get a big enough gear, a small enough gear, and keep one tooth jumps for cruising up to the 19 cog.

It can be bad. With the 13 starting cog the 14 is the smallest that's not fully cross-chained when used with the small ring with 39x14 yielding about 22 MPH versus 19 MPH for 34x14. Although that doesn't look like much on paper, power to overcome aerodynamic drag increases with the cube of velocity so with the 39 ring you can put out 50% more power before you need to shift to your big ring. Being able to stay on the small ring that much longer can make for a lot less double shifting and with 50-34 the next gear can be five cogs away when changing rings versus 4 cogs with 53-39 and 3 with 50-39 (where the later is one shifter wiggle in either direction using Campagnolo levers).

The 50-34/53-39 choice is also a false dichotomy. You can use different rings to move gears you don't need into ranges that you do need thus gaining more overlap between rings, fewer places you need double shifts, and faster less onerous double shifts. With eleven cogs I think 46-36x12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25 would be the hot ticket for me. The down-side of this is that Campagnolo/Shimano (and one would hope SRAM) rings tend to have better pin/ramp configurations but are available in fewer configurations so something like 49-38 might take the form of TA rings that don't shift quite as well as a matched set of Shimano 50-34 rings. OTOH, 46-36 is a combination which sells well enough in the cyclocross market to merit attention.

You need to consider how much power you put out for various durations, what sort of hills you face, how much you weigh, what your preferred cadence range is, what happens to your fatigue when you get outside that, etc.

53-42 x 12-23 might be nice (you don't need the high gear, but the 12 cog will let you stay on the small ring longer). 53-39 x 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-26 might be nice (you don't need the small gear but the 26 will let you stay on the big ring longer). 50-34 x 11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21 might be OK but you'll have more double shifting than if you ran 50-39 x 12-23. 46-36 x 12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23 could give you more breathing room on both rings without problems at either end or in the middle.

There are lots of choices here. You really need to consider when you run out of gears, where you feel you'd like another cog because you're constantly switching between two adjacent cogs (many roadies want one tooth jumps up to the 17 cog and some of us want that to the 19), where you're double shifting, etc.

As a light guy you probably don't have the power to drag ratio to be fast on flat ground so you don't need a big gear, do have the power to weight ratio to climb well so you don't need a small gear, and would do well with hard small gears and easy big gears with more overlap and/or smaller jumps between gears you do use.

Drew Eckhardt 

Chain tension is about 6% lower at the same cadence + power, with less pressure and therefore less friction on the pins, side-plates, chain ring teeth, and cassette teeth producing less wear. The 16 may also be closer to the center of the cassette with the better chain line producing less side-wear.

OTOH, in practice 6% just doesn't matter.