damn had to switch my 52 cog to a 43. it's too small...

Dude, that's sort of a big step down. Maybe something a little more intermediate might be good for ya. How about a 46? What's your cog again?

on a completely unrelated note, does anyone wonder about an increased risk of becoming impotent due to riding?

noope, but I'm praying that I'm sterile.

thankfully all my reproductive goodies are on the inside. ha!

16 right Alexi?

Damn what did you go make that kind of a switch for anyway. You're going to spinning out going up hills.

Not only that, you get the Bicycle Smile fringe benefit.

I broke my 52 ring yesterday, i think a chainring bolt came loose and one of the arms snapped, the only other 1/8th chainring i have in the house is 43.

Nice work! You were pushing too tall a gear anyhow, you wouldn't have gotten used to it, woulda just wrecked your knees instead.

well i'm still waiting for a 19 tooth cog in the mail...

I'm sure being overweight and diabetic with a bad ticker carries far greater risk.

If you are positioned correctly, ( meaning correct frame size, position set-up etc.), you will never need to be concerned about this. Great cycling champions, Merckx,Hinault,LeMond and Armstrong to name a few ........... have children ! When they started manufacturing saddles with holes in the middle, some 8-10 years ago........, I had a good laugh ! I thought what a great marketing scam ! ! Having raced professionally ( yes, with LeMond,Hampsten and Phinney to name a few) from the mid seventies through the late 80's ....logging about 35,000 miles per season...... you would think I would be impotent if saddles[U] really [/U] needed a hole in them. This was just good marketing to appease the people who did not have a clue about bike morphology. Like so many things in our culture......... throw money at something and it will fix the problem, ......... without taking a good look at what is truly causing the problem.

52t isnt so bad in boston. before i went back to working fulltime, i was riding 52 just to see if i could do it without brakes. doing that to myself for 40+ hours a week would be knee-suicide for sure.. now its 48.

Yeah, but what were you cranking out back?

16

Hm. I see.

Well unless you're cruising at 20mph, you're probably wasting your time anyhow.

I love a 52-53X15,16,17 setup. It is like getting a freight train rolling and stopping once you get up to 21-23 mph. I was blowing by folks on the Greenway, and did a couple centuries with that set up. Of course once I started commuting 50+ miles a day, I came back to earth, I'll still hit 20-21 mph, but it isn't quite so hard on the knees, I'm enjoying either a 46 or 48 X 15, 16, 17. I have a couple frames that I switch the wheel sets on depending on my mood, and what I'm looking to accomplish.

I figure around a 60 - 80 rpm cadence. Calculate your desired crusing speed from that. Unless you can hit that mph at the appropriate rpm, you should gear down (or up) as necessary.