14-32 11-speed -- fast group ride cassette

My fast group rides can hit the 20-24 mph range on the flats. I'm working hard to hang on the group at those speeds. I wanted very close shifts from around 18 mph through the low 20s. And a 32 cog for the steepest hills.

My Di2 bike came with 11-28, and the 11-32 just barely fits: there's a minimal gap at the top pulley, but it's never had trouble shifting into or out of the 32.

I merged a 11-32 and a 14-28 junior racing cassette (Junior racing has a rollout limit on the highest gear combination). Another thread mentioned merging this combination cassette.
Showing the 2 cogs on a carrier in green, the final three carrier in magenta. (Ultegra has 2 carriers, the rest are loose cogs with spacers.)
14-28: 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 25 28
11-32: 11 12 13 14 16 18 20 22 25 28 32

14-32: 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 22 25 28 32

Notes on the 14-32:
It shifts easily at the mismatched 19-20 shift point. It can be noisy on that shift. (The two different 20 cogs don't line up the same way, one is rotated compared to the other one.) You can't split up an Ultegra carrier, the cogs are riveted to a splined base.

The biggest problem is having to shift 4 or 5 cogs when shifting the front rings, and this happens a lot around 14-17 mph. I have Di2, so that's not a big deal, the shifts are fast and easy. It would be pretty annoying with a mechanical shifter.

I spin out at about 30 mph, but that's a reasonable tradeoff to me. I put back the 11-32 if I'm going to have long moderate downhills where I want to pedal, or if I'm doing an easier paced ride, with more time spent at the 14-18 mph speeds.

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A Stock 11-32.
One advantage of the 11 cog: The 34 chainring is usable all the way past 20 mph.

But the shift gaps on the big ring from 18 mph to 25 mph are very big. I keep shifting up and down, trying to find the right cadence at those speeds. This 11-32 has reasonably close shifts from 12 to 20 mph in either chainring. And that's where many riders spend most of their time.




My 14-32 cassette.
The 34 chainring can't go much past 15-16 mph. (And those small chainring shifts from 12 to 15 mph are really too close together--I usually end up shifting two cogs there.)

With every cog from 14 through 20, there's very close shifts from 17 mph up to 25 mph.
But 30 mph is 107 rpm, and I can't get too much power out of a faster cadence.

I like it.



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Swapping cassettes
So now I have a few different cassettes, and switch between them fairly often.

I made some cassette holders -- a block of 1x4 wood with one or more dowels glued into drilled holes. An extra holder makes it easy to store cassettes and clean them, moving each loose cog from one holder to another.

I got the Crombie cassette tool. It's very well designed, (but kind of expensive). The quick release can stay on the wheel, since the tool slips over the nut. The handle is the right length to get a reasonable torque on the cassette without needing a torque wrench or a separate wrench for the usual small cassette tools. And it never slips or mangles the lockring.