Originally Posted by
aliasfox
My main bike is a 2x11 that originally came equipped with the 50x34 crank, and 11-34 Shimano HG800 cassette.
I absolutely hated that cassette. On flat pavement, in still air, I'm comfortable holding 50x15 @ ~80rpm, but as soon as the grade shifts slightly, or there's a headwind, I need to downshift - but the next gear is a 17, which is just too big of a gap. Likewise, on a slight descent, I'd love to hold 50x14, but I have to stick with 50x13 (just a little too hard), or 50x15 (spinning faster than I'd like).
On the other hand, I have a short, 9.8%, 0.5km grind to get to the local MUP. Even on that, I never used 34T, and rarely the 30T - I was fastest grinding up that climb in 34x27. This is in-line with my experience on my other bike, where I would go up a 6% 1.5km climb in 32x25 or even 32x22 - never needing that bike's 27T granny gear until I took her out to CA - 2km @ 13.4% or 9% at the tail end of an 8km, 7% avg...
Having both of these experiences, I replaced the 11-34 HG800 with a Miche 12-29. I've never gotten the shifting to be quite as crisp as the Shimano cassette, but I have every gear between 12-17, and the 29T still gives me a 7% lower gear than I typically use. I also have a SRAM 1170 11-28, which is similar to the Miche, but is slightly more cruising focused (fewer climbing gears). The SRAM shifts better, but I'll trade that for the Miche's gear range.
My recommendation would be all else equal, pick the bike with the 11-28 gearing, as it sounds like you're not likely to want/need more. That said, if you like everything else on the bike with the wider gearing, go for that bike - if you don't like the 11-34 after a couple of rides, there are definitely other options that can be installed for very little money.
Exactly, with respect to road riding. The 11-34 cassette was originally designed for mountain bikes and has since been surpassed by even the wider range 11-40 and 11-42 cassettes. Given my experience with the 11-32 cassette, I thought I was going to hate the 11-34 cassette that came with my gravel bike, but in that application it works very well. The larger gaps at the smaller end of the cassette allows more gears at the bigger end, which allows better finetuning of climbing cadence.
Originally Posted by
aliasfox
I care a lot about my gearing, actually - I need a corncob from 12-17, but rarely use 11T. I've regularly used up to 27T, and when I'm feeling weak/tired/slow (name your excuse), I'm happy to have 28-30T. On my 11-34, my 34T is much, much shinier than my other cogs.
Sounds like you need an 11-speed 12-28 cassette, which is my holy grail, so much that I bought two.