Originally Posted by merlinextraligh

One place I'd like to have bigger gears is on the tandem, but even then it would only be for really rare circumstances.

At Masters Nationals in the tandem road race, the race started with a 10 mile descent down Mt Bachelor. Knowing we were going to be outclimbed on the climb backup Mt Bachelor, our one hope was to attack on the downhill.

We jumped at 50+ mph, got in the mid 50's and got a couple hundred yard gap, but we're also spinning 140 rpm plus in 53/11. As a team, we weren't smooth enough to sustain that without the bike shaking unacceptably, so discretion lead us to sit up and go back to the pack. 56/11 would have helped a bit.

We've hit 65mph, but that was due to gravity, not pedaling.