Originally Posted by
79pmooney
I rode a bunch of races on one of those many years ago. Trained and rode the hilly New England races on the touring version, 13-19. Rode gearbasher's cluster for the Stowe race (except my freewheel only had half the cogs).
And for years, I rode triples (including the first 15 years on the Mooney) with 52 (or 53) -42-28 X 13-19 5-speed. First year of racing, I just screwed in the inside FD for the open races.
Edit: My current 9-speed has the Campy cassette. Lots of gear choices, I often run it 12, 14-19, 21, 23 so an almost straight block. (12, 14 because I hardly need the big gears except Portland and Oregon have quite a few big descents and I like the big gears to quiet the bike.)
Speeds at 80 to 100 rpm for this 53/42 and 13-19. (The triple makes this a lot more practical.)
28 in red, 42 in black, 53 in blue.
That's reasonable shift spacing in the range, but steep hills must have been a very low cadence with just two chainrings. Low gear with the 42 at 35 rpm is still 6 mph.
What about sprinting at the end of a race? 53-13 at 120 rpm is about 38 mph.
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When I was riding fast-for-me club rides, I needed close shifts at 18-25 mph to try to hang on. And there were hills too.
So I made a Shimano 11 speed combo cassette from a Junior Racing 14-28 and an 11-32. The two carriers for the 5 largest cogs are from the 11-32, shown in red.
14-15-16-17-18-
19-22 25 28 32 with a 34/50 front.
It worked great at those higher speeds, but shifts at lower speeds in the 34 ring at 10 mph, etc, were too close together. I'd shift 2 or 3 cogs at a time then. And I'd be coasting downhill at speeds higher than about 28-29 mph.