Originally Posted by
kbarch
... which gets to my point that, from any given speed, it's easier to accelerate more quickly with a higher starting cadence. Up to a point, the lower the cadence, the more sluggish acceleration tends to be. ....
That would mean keeping within a range of speed would be easier at low cadence than while spinning; was that your point? That makes perfect sense to me. I have to question however why staying a specific speed is desirable even in a group of people. Then again I ride 99% solo.
But if you're saying 17mph is catatonic, well, then more than half the folks out there every weekend on four- and five-figure road bikes are catatonic most of the time, regardless of what one might read here. And a lot of them find an 11t cog useful for "going fast" from time to time. It may seem silly to some, but they really do use it, and happily
Good point, and I abandon the 53-11 combination purely because I almost never used it. If someone else likes the feeling of pushing that down hill, or low cadence effort, more power to them.