13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. That's a corncob Popeye would make a pipe of.
Disc brakes and 1x drivetrains. These are the sort of things that belong on mountainbikes, are questionable on cross bikes, and should make an immediate trip to the rubbish bin when it comes to road bikes. Change for the sake of change; gimmickry masquerading as innovation. And to make matters worse, the appearance of 11-speed blocks has killed the last vestige of the complexity of our sport: block composition and size.
The question of gear choice was once one of the most critical decisions a Cyclist could make when tackling a course. In The Rider, Tim Krabé describes his gear choice and those of his competitors; throughout the book, he fixates upon which gear he is riding in. José Manuel Fuente used to use higher gears that the other climbers to intimidate them. Andy Hampsten famously rode only odd-numbered gears because obviously even-sized gears made his palms go sweaty.
Sean Kelly belabored his choice to use a 13-25 block versus a 12-23 for the 1989 World Championship Road Race. He knew he couldn’t climb as well as the other favorites and wanted a 25 to save his legs over the final climb. If, however, he managed to get over the hill, he would surely need the 12 in order to win the sprint. It was a classic catch-22; use a block that he could win the sprint with but get dropped on the climb, or get over the hill and lose the sprint. The race lay in the balance of a single tooth on a cog.
We used to build our blocks, not buy a complete cassette on ebay. The idea was to keep the gears as close together as possible with a straight block being the holy grail and the relative smallness of the biggest gear being a declaration of your status as Hardman. Every tooth beyond a 1 tooth jump was a sacrifice; every step beyond a 21 or 23 tooth cog was a silent admission of your sissiness as a Cyclist. The Pros today are riding 11-28 blocks on every kind of terrain, every day. Even at Paris-Roubaix, one of the only races flat enough to still require little more than a 19 even for us mortals.
Committing to nothing lower than a 19-tooth gear requires a suitcase of courage, poor planning, or both. And it looks tough as nails, that tight cluster of gears at the back wheel. Not like these big dinner plates we see riding around all over the place these days. You could serve a nice helping of Steak Frites on some of these modern blocks. Disgraceful. And while I’m not building my blocks anymore, I’m certainly still choosing a cassette for the terrain and plan to continue doing so until I’m pushing up daisies, thank you very much.
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View Comments
@frank
You think Eddy drilled his own rings or asked Campy to do it ?? And love seeing his drilled out bars.
@TheVid
This 1x thing is just a fucking nightmare. I saw a 42T cog on a cassette the other day. I became instantly ill. Even for a mountain bike, that's disgraceful.
@sthilzy
Pure sex. And loved those old Sun Tour blocks. So sad that company went out of business. The grace and passion of Campa at the price point of Shimano. The happiest I ever was as a kid was when I upgraded my steed to have Scott Drop-Ins, a Regal saddle, and Superbe Pro.
@piwakawaka
You had me, then you lost me, then you had me again.
But that middle comment almost has you out of the club.
@Resty
This is a joke, right?
What you're saying is the equivalent of posting this to an OCD Therapy thread.
@piwakawaka
They improve road riding like a windshield sticker improves the performance of a Civic.
@mauibike
Which is also why we resisted index or "click" shifting as we called it. You'd push the shifter it was like a giant spoiler alert to everyone in the group that you were planning to attack.
In the Alps one year, I saw a bunch of guys riding around on 7 speed blocks that were half "mountain" and half "flat" - the first few gears were smallish, maybe topping out at 26 if they came that big, and the biggest gears were straight 12-13-14 or some such - with a MASSIVE jump in between. Sound familiar?
@Phillip Mercer
I am 10 speed around the house so I can change wheels between all bikes. (I'm now also mostly carbon so I don't also have to change rim blocks)
I prefer the 12-25 for my daily riding in Seattle and have done OK with that on the mountain roads as well. I like that its just a little smoother and around here if I'm spinning out the 12 I'm going fast enough; I've hit over 100kmph so that's fine with me. I do a "climbing" cassette of a 13-26 which basically trades the 12 for the 26 and have a "flat" cassette of 11-23 which is so smooth it makes me want to ride it all the time.
@Resty
You're also opening that bike up to possession by demons -- the triple is evil.
@OJ
Its a really oddly specific circumstance where discs give a clear advantage, otherwise they just look ugly as hell. Once the peloton unfortunately adopts this industry run change, I can't wait a rider is on the side of the road on a climb with a neutral service vehicle having to give more information that Campag or Shimano/SRAM gearing. What disc width? what size? and then watching them try and slot the new wheel in as the racer's chances disappear up the mountain...
@Phillip Mercer
Fucking class. +1 badge to you.