Hello All,

I was told that a 12-28 cassette may help me while riding. There seems like I'm missing a gear when riding the rolling hills of Ga. If I shift down, it appears to easy, however when I shift up it appears to hard of a gear. He recommended a 12-28. I have a 50-34 and sram red groupset.

Thoughts?

Thanks

A Shimano 12-28 has the following cogs: 12-13-14-15-16-17-19-21-23-25-28. This establishes a tight progression with less than a 12% change in cadence with any shift of the cogs. This is a very tight increment between cogs.

What cassette are you using now?

What are you currently running? if you are in the more todays standard 11-28 cog, the ranges are 11,12,13,14,15,17,19,21,23,25,28. A 12-28 cassette has cog ranges of 12,13,14,15,16,17,19,21,23,25,28. So You would be gaining a 16T, which I don't think you would use as much on hills. I think where you are running into issues is the jumps between 21-23-25. There is a chance you have a 11-25 which if thats the case then you may indeed what to try either a 11-28 or a 12-28

The benefit of an 11 or 12-28 is it will give you a better low range but the larger spread comes at a cost - larger jumps between cogs. So it might just make your problems worse.

What cassette are you running now? What gears do you find yourself between?

I live in the rolling hills of northern NJ and I’ve found 2 things help -

1) figure out which cog you wish you had and buy another cassette and mix and match cogs until you have what you want. This’ll take a couple of shots - first time I tried this I ended up with a terrible result.

2) hope this doesn’t sound elitist (very much not that kind of guy) - being between gears like that points to maybe not enough “cadence tolerance”. Keep riding and mix in some low cadence days where you grind out on a smaller cog than normal, then spend a couple days here and there spinning a larger cog at higher cadence than normal. Eventually your legs will build a tolerance to the broader range.

Low cadence needs more leg strength (fast twitch muscle fibers) and high cadence recruits more cardio... might be the solution.

Is 12-28 available in anything apart from DuraAce?
12-25 is good if you can get by without the 28. Available in Ultegra as well.

To get a useful answer you need to provide more info. What cassette are you running?, is it 10 or 11sp? At what gearshift do you experience the "too big" gap?

11-28 cassette

running 11-28. Its a middle gear that I feel that I'm missing. Not on hills but on slight elevations.Seems like a large gap(like I'm missing a gear)

Sorry 11-28. Somewhere in the middle I feel that I'm missing a gear on slight elevations

You're probably missing the 16T or 18T gear. HTFU!

What middle gear? Big ring or little ring? 10 speed or 11 speed?

Like mcourse said above... you’re probably missing the 16T or possibly the 18T. So In that case, moving from 11-28 to 12-28 might just work for you.

Are you ever desperately in need of that 28T cog? If not, perhaps you could buy the 12-25 and have even better resolution where you need it. If you stick to the exact brand and level cassette, you could always swap the 28T back in.

What 12-28 cassette has a 18t?

Ya got me there, though it’s certainly possible that this is the one the OP needs. If that’s the one, either SRAM or shimano does offer one on one of their CX/mtb cassettes which can easily be plucked and used.

I have a 12-28 and my wife rides it. I road a 14-27 today and find that perfect as an older guy.
11-18 to 12-28 is a pretty small difference.

Do you have a 12-28 11spd cassette with an 18t cog? Yes it’s possible to custom build one, but I think Racing Dan was asking about a prebuilt cassette.

scram red 11speed. cassette in the rear. currently 11-28.

Don't make me count. You can get DA Combination 4 - 12-13-14-15-16-17-18*-19*-21*-23*-25*T
Or 12-13-14-15-16-17-19*-21*-23*-25*-28*T
I think the 18-19-21 could be put on the 12-28 for a 12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-25-28 which is for real purposes quite useful.

2018-2019 SHIMANO Product Information Web

I road today Recon 14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,23,25,27 but they change.

Ultegra has
Combination 5 14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-23-25-28T
Combination 4 12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25T

I was. Im not aware of a 12-28 with a 18t cog. The DA one replaces the 11t with a 16t, but no 18t. Reason Im asking about this and try to extract some more specific info from OP is, it may be the 18t he misses, or something else that is the same between the 12-28 and 11-28 anyway. The SRAM 11-28 that OP is using, already has a 16t, but jumps from 19t to 22t, where as the the Shimano 11-28 is 19t-21t, but loses the 16t. If he gets the DA 12-28 he retains the 16t and gets 19t-21t instead of 19t-22t or he could get a the shimano 11-28 and get 19t-21t, but loose the 16t. The DA cassette is pretty expensive though.

https://www.ritzelrechner.de/?GR=DERS...&SL=2.3&UN=KMH

https://www.ritzelrechner.de/?GR=DERS...&SL=2.3&UN=KMH

https://www.ritzelrechner.de/?GR=DERS...&SL=2.3&UN=KMH

Me? I would get the 11-32 to gain one more low gear from the big ring.

https://www.ritzelrechner.de/?GR=DERS...25,28&UF2=2135

all you had to say was "no".

Based on posts #8 & #9, this seems highly personal.

Ok, we finally some of the info we need. SRAM red 11-28 has 11,12,13,14,15,16,17,19,22,25,28. So it must be the 18 or possibly the 20/21 your legs are wishing for.

as mentioned above, shimano’s 6800 ultegra 14/28 solves this issue as it has a straight block from 14-21 and plus a 23 and maintains the 28 granny cog.

This comes at the expense of top end speed, missing the 11-13 cogs, but really this will only come into play descending under power.

Edit: Honestly, eliminating the 11-13 is a really drastic change. Perhaps drop the 28 and go with the ultegra 12-25, which has 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25

12-25 is a great cassette for rolling hills-flat terrain

Or buy a 105 (or Ultegra) 12-25 and 11-28 and make your own 12-28. Then you can use the leftovers on a trainer wheel. Would still probably come out cheaper than getting a DA 12-28

12-28 is the perfect cassette IMO. At least for my riding style and terrain (and fitness). For every 1 time I may wish I had an 11t, there's 5 or 6 times I'm glad to have the 16t. Every other cog is the same on these two cassettes. If it's right in that perfect zone of 15-19 where you feel you are missing a gear, then yeah, the 16t will make a difference. If it's above the 17t, it's the same cassette, so anything above that will be the exact same, and you will feel no difference.