Originally Posted by
pcrx
Better to have the gearing you need for the slope you are on than trying to "be a man" and mash it up the hills with the wrong gearing - that's just dumb and a long term loss IMHO when your knees eventually go to hell - so much for cycling in your older years...
Yep. One of my favorite stories is from someone who was buying a new bike and had emailed a shop asking about the cost to have the double swapped for a triple on a high end road bike. The employee responded that anyone buying that level of bike should be riding a double, to which the reply came something like go ride the Hoodoo 500 and when you're climbing that last double digit grade around mile 480, tell me you wouldn't like a lower gear.
Originally Posted by
pcrx
Same goes for cassettes... I have some widely spaced ones for riding mountains but also some closer spaced road cassettes for riding where I know there won't be too many hills.
I do too, but I got used to the spacing on the wider cassette (11-28) and got too lazy to switch it out all the time, so the narrow cassette just sits on my spare/rain wheels.