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Old 08-07-19, 10:15 AM
  #88  
79pmooney
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Originally Posted by 63rickert
If doing 15mph at 60rpm that would mean a gear ratio of approx 50x16. If I tried to start a ride in a gear that large it would feel like lifting weights. It would feel like pushing against a wall. Ride would be over and I'd be tired very quick.

I went to school fifty years ago and was incredibly fortunate to have great teachers. Guys who had done their best racing from 1910 to 1940. When cycling was the top money sport. When cycling paid way better than boxing and sports with balls were largely amateur. When everyone who wanted to make money in sport was riding a bike my teachers won races. We warmed up at 18-20mph. Try again. We always warmed up. Rides always started easy and no one dreamed of attacking or picking up pace first ten miles of any ride. Warmup was done on the flat and was mostly on 42x17 or 42x18. When warmup was over gears went up, cadence never went down. 100rpm was normal. Some of us would gear even lower and warm up at 110 or 120rpm.

Racing in 1960s mostly meant track. Standard track gear was 46x14 fixed. Very few geared any differently. Most common reason to gear higher would simply be that the rider in question was a big guy. And then it would be 47x14. If you couldn't do 40mph in a gear of 46x14 you weren't racing. In other words if you didn't have 150rpm on tap there was no reason to line up at the start.

There is no 'should be'. There is only what is. Basically no one rides or trains as described above any longer. Very few go to school in any significant way. Gears are much higher and cadence is much lower. And there are no rules or standards at all.
+1 I raced later than you. Road. '76-78 but learned (indirectly) from a master. John Allis. Winters were ridden fixed in a 42-17, 18 or lower. Inside ring on the flat all summer unless it was a race or you were doing high speed work.

One concept that was drummed into us; if we could stay with another rider spinning a lower gear, we could beat him. No, not in that lower gear, but when crunch time came, we would have the reserves to accelerate a big gear and the guy who had been pushing it all day would not.

Another reason to learn to spin lower gears that could help the OP someday - the ability to spin a low gear and go the desired speed means that you can ride with knees that are not happy, minor muscle injuries and a lot of other conditions that riding high gears either caused or will aggravate. But spinning a low gear is a skill that has to be learned and practiced. Much better done before that injury.

Ben
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