woodcraft

I got an 11/32 cassette & RD extender to get extra gears over 11/28.

Am I a wuss?

Anticipating some big climbs this year, but embarrassed.

TimothyH

You are no more of a wuss than anyone using an 11/32 cassette with a mid or long cage derailleur, which would have been a much better solution.

You do have too much pride though. Forget yourself and live life.


-Tim-

koolerb

Came standard on my 2016 Giant Defy 1. Not uncommon these days.

Maelochs

A wuss? What, did we time warp back to junior high?

I saw Chriss Froome using s 50-34 with a 32-tooth cog in the Vuelta. I was going to fly to Spain to kick his wussy butt .... Real Men use 53-39 and a 11-23 cassette.

Apparently, however, Vuelta winners use whatever gearing gets them up the mountain best.

Hmmm .... pretty sound argument, at that.

(In point of fact, Mr. Froome proved it's not what you ride, ti's what you inhale ... but that is a very different story.)

Ride whatever gets you up the climb.

Walk if you want.

A "wuss' is someone who lacks the confidence to do what seems right for himself or herself unless others assure him or her it is alright.

(If I were doing Big climbs, and didn't want to walk, I would go 11-36 At Least ... but that's just me .... and nothing wrong with walking, either.)

trainsktg

Spinning at 250-300W up a steep, long climb is a lot less taxing than grinding at the same power. That's why, at 52 and 190#, I have an 11sp 11-40 mountain cassette on my TCR. Rode several group rides with the local hammerheads over the last few months and no-one commented either positively or negatively on the setup...i.e. no-one cares.

Edit: Here's a pic of the offending bike. Look at the pie plate .



Keith

Jakedatc

Plan on getting one to make my CX bike a bit more gravely during the summer. Easier to swap on/off the link and a chain than re-do RD cabling and adjustments

deepakvrao

Done this for one of my wife's bikes. Not yet used it on really difficult climbs, but I'll bet she'll be happy. Have the stuff to do it for my bike also, but not yet got around to doing it.

Using that Wolftooth thingie?

deepakvrao

No need for a chain swap. Size it as small-small and it will work [usually] even with a bigger cassette. At least when I swapped my ife's cassette from a 11-32 to 11-40, the chain worked well.

Jakedatc

Cool.. i'll probably go from 11-28 to 11-36 so i'll try the current chain first.

rm -rf

Test the big-big combo before riding the 11-36. You don't want to jam the chain if you accidentally shift to the big-big while riding.

Put it in the big chainring and a middle rear cog. Have someone lift the rear wheel off the ground or use a repair stand. Hand crank and shift to the biggest cog. The chain should still have at least a small jog at the derailleur pulleys, instead of being stretched out straight.

chaadster

Exactly the point: gearing doesn’t make watts, it just lets you get it to the rear wheel, and the faster you get them there, the faster you’ll go.

Nice looking rig, btw!

Silvercivic27

Depends on how thick your skin is. My former teammates used to make fun of me for my pie plate, but I didn’t really care, and it was probably mostly good natured ribbing.

chaadster

Well if you've got a pie plate and compact crank but aren't climbing mountains...

Jakedatc

Yep, did a gravel ride last year in VT.. 100km with 7000' low gear was 36-36 and was even grinding that at the end. Was 2nd group on the road with only a few fast guys out ahead.

kingston 

I'd never install one on any of my bikes because I buy bikes that have appropriate gearing for my level of fitness and how I plan to use the bike. Installing a wolftooth roadlink just means you accidentally bought the wrong bike. No biggie. Cheap and easy fix compared to buying a new bike.

Racing Dan

If the assumption is that 80-90 RPM is the "best" cadence is to be believed, then lots of ppl run way too high gears for climbing mountains. I have no idea how many or how few watts/kg you consider "wuss", but a quick calculation seem to show that anything sustained at 5% or more, is likely to drop the cadence, of the average rider, below 80 RPM.

At 200W, a 175 lbs rider will do about 7.2 mph, at 74 RPM (34/28 gear) on a 6% incline.

An 11-32 doesn't make much difference to a 11-28. Consider a 34, 36 or even 40, depending on your ability an terrain.

SSRI

I am right behind you, my next project is a double MTB crank and a 11-40 cassette built.

trainsktg

Yeah its the Wolftooth.

A 10% grade seems to be where things start to fall apart if I'm running 34-32, so having the 36 and 40 in the rear keeps me going longer. FTP tested out at 307 a few weeks ago, so roughly 3.5 w/kg. 20 minute power is 323.

Keith

woodcraft

Seems like a pretty big difference to me.

I'll give it a real test today. Having the option to spin up climbs, & staying above 60 rpm

when steep & tired is what I'm looking for.

Noticed a guy's big cassette a while back, & he said "Oh yeah, I put that on for the Death Ride,

& never took it off".

woodcraft

Does the chain go slack in the small/small?

trainsktg

Slack as in drooping, no. Its in small-small in the picture (which is how I store all my bikes) and there is no visible sag. In big-big, the RD has about another inch-and-a-half of travel to full extension.

Keith

trainsktg

An interesting comment I seem to hear regularly in the Youtube videos where someone does an Everesting event is that even young skinny guys are wishing for a gear lower than 34-32 before they get even half way through the attempt, if they complete it at all.

Keith

banerjek

I've never quite understood the pie plate movement. I'd be more inclined to shrink the rings in front. If you run a 46x30 MTB crank up front with an 11/32, you don't spin out until nearly 40mph and it's a very normal cadence over 30mph.

Everyone worries about spinning out at high speeds, but unless you need to put out massive power for very brief sprints, your speed comes from aero tuck rather than the cranks.

trainsktg

That's a great point and one I had considered, but I have three bikes running Shimano 50-34 cranks that I regularly swap one crank-mounted power meter between. Had I changed to a mountain crank on the TCR, I would have had to buy another power meter exclusive to it, so the rear cassette change on one bike was the much more economical solution for me.

Edit: Make that four that I swap the power meter between...the fourth being a gravel bike running a compatible 46-34 up front and 11-34 in the rear. Not quite as low a gear as the TCR, and definitely noticeable when the grade pitches up, but I probably will leave it as-is.

Keith

Racing Dan

They cant sustain the power needed to keep up cadence for the many hours an attempt requires. You may be able to spin 34/32 on the first climb, but what about the next and the next? Maybe no so much.