Originally Posted by
topflightpro
I've been reading this thread with interest, as I am still new to track and learning what gears I want.
For the most part, I thought I was running small gears because I was racing largely in the 86-94 range.
I recently had my wife come with me to the track to time my 200 efforts with different gears to figure out my best options. I started at 108. I got around in a decent time, but I really felt like I was fighting the bike to keep it going. My wife and another guy there that day - former world champion - both agreed that despite the time, it was too big of a gear. I backed off to 100 and shaved .2 off the 108 time. I then went up to 102, as I felt like I was spinning out the 100. My time was up a little bit, but it's unclear if that was due to the bigger gear or fatigue.
You are still waaaay too high.
Understand that if you are new, you can shave off a full second in back to back runs using the same gear by simply adjusting your windup and/or your line.
To explain my point, open your phone to the stopwatch app and see just how fast a second goes by.
The 0.2s gain you found could simply be stopwatch user error or you pulling your shorts up tighter
