Originally Posted by
big chainring
Gear progression is easily modified. Experiment with different set ups. But the greatest variable is cadence. You can get going pretty fast in a 63 inch gear at 100 rpm. For many years the best time trialists used an 84 inch fixed gear(48×15). Ray Booty was the first to break 4 hrs for the 100 mile TT, and used an 84" fixed gear to do it. It's only with the advent of the 9,10,11 speed cassettes that cyclists seem to "need" the mega range of gears. The classic "10 speed"(5x2) can supply the same wide range of gears but the rider changes cadence more often to ease the "gaps".
For many years it was taught that high rpm's produced supple muscle and aerobic fitness. The new road bike craze and bikes being supplied with extremely large gears, 50×11 give me a break, has broken from the years and years of low gear-high rpm ideal of training. To each his own. But just today I was spinning effortlessly while others I was riding with were punishing themselves in high gear mashing.
Mashing needn't be punishing. And doesn't your tale of old school racers "easing the gaps" in their 5spd freewheels with cadence kind of recall the big gear mashing as part and parcel of that?
I can turn over L3 Tempo power at 70-75 without much problem, which is enough to carry me at 18-20mph on relatively flat ground. I don't always ride like that, of course, and am just as happy at that power at 95rpm, but that kind of flexibility is what you were talking about was so great about the classic racers. The "high cadence all the time" thing is the modern invention.