elemental

In mid-August I made the transition from fixed gear (with relatively high gearing for pseudo-roadie purposes) to a geared bike in order to alleviate knee soreness and the pain and damage I knew was coming. The other half of this conversion meant that I would have to become a spinner so I would actually benefit from the gears instead of just mashing the same RPM at different speeds. I searched the forum and followed a little of someone else's attempt, took some of the advice, and tried to go with it. I've been thinking about it less recently and concentrating more on trying to get my speed and climbing ability up (not working), but today I decided to calculate my cruising RPM using the ride timer on my computer. Turns out a comfortable pace for me is about 27 revolutions in fifteen seconds, which comes out to 108 RPM! Also, I find that on smaller hills when I'm feeling half decent, I spin a higher RPM right up the hill, and on small hills I can definitely beat a stand-up-and-masher of comparable or somewhat better cycling ability without really feeling like I'm exerting myself too much. Needless to say, my knees and I are happy.

05fjrbluedevil

Glad to here you are having success, which gears are you using most often?

Which crank and cogs do you have?

I went from a mtb 7 speed shifters to a cyclocross, that I had a standard compact crank and 12-27 cog setup put on....

I find that i prefered the mtb, set up for climbing, but the was cyclocross bike now road bike for my daily riding.

I have noticed that both my knees hurt, so I have been trying to spin more......

So have you noticed that your knees are no longer hurting or are they still bothering you?


Mike

cuski

I concur.

elemental

They feel wonderful. Sometimes a little sore, but no pain. I ascribe this to my zero-float soccer cleat and toe clip system, as my pedals are still in the mail from PBK. I think it was the 39x14 that was magicallly delicious today over gentle rollers. Once we got into the hills I was all over the place gear wise. The crank is a 172.5mm Sugino (I am 5'10" and ride a 56). I assume the ringsare 39 and 52, but I might be wrong.