Originally Posted by
1slowride
Not sure this in the right section but I assume us folks over fifty run into this more often. Got a modern road bike this summer, went on my second group ride. Quite a few hills, noticed everyone seemed to have two or three gears lower then my set up. Did an 8% 2 mile hill. Ended up grinding up at 8 mph by the top my knees were speaking up. Got home and did the math and my cadence was just shy of 52 rpm. Front chainrings are 53/39 rear cassette is 12-25. Looked on line for a different campy centaur cassette I see they have a 13-29 which would put me at 75 rpm. Sounded reasonable but this puts me right were I was on my old Nishiki until I scrounged a smaller small ring for it. I live in the Seattle area near the cascade foot hills so hills are part of game. Can you change the largest two or three cogs on the campy cassette? Should I change the smaller front ring gear? What works for the rest of you? Cranks are 170 and I am 5' 10" I weight 185
I decided to look up Campy cassettes and all I can say is I am glad I have Shimano/ SRAM. If your derailleur will take it change cassettes till you can get into the 75 range. Some of the riders in the last AMGEN were using SRAM 11x32s but they had medium derailleurs. And yes many do use compacts. a 34x32 gives you close to a 1 to 1 climb ratio. On the flats a 50x11 is pretty close to a 53x12 over all. I take it you have a new 11 speed cassette?