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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Some kind of embroidery?
@Phillip Mercer
There still will be problems, unless all cyclists have the rotor in exactly the same place. Hence the move to through-axles for disk brakes, with QRs you can have problems with rubbing when replacing the wheel. I suspect that there use will be limited, depending conditions - expect to see cyclists switching to bikes with disks in the wet on a long descent.
@frank
Mmm yeah er - I got me a 1 x 11 SRAM set up on the CX V-bike rig I rode on the Heck and KT. Idea was to replicate a compact range but with less mechanical bits to fall off/get clogged up/break and that would also work as a #2/rain bike.
It does work but there are trade offs: the jump between ratios means there's a fair bit of hunting for the the right ratio going uphill (usually you end up on the soup plate after going through the Richard and Jesus gears), the chain angles make for a noisy drive train after a messy day - it sounds like you're being followed by a panzer if I'm honest, and the set up is prone to eating front chain rings - you'll do well to get 2,500kms out of one - but that might be a function of the crap I put the thing through.
That said, it did the job in Minnesota and on PR in the mud and kept up with G'rilla and the Lion.
It's also the rig I'm going to use if I get me an entry for next year's Transcontinental if Mrs Engine doesn't bury me under the patio first.
@The Engine
What's the Richard gear?
I have to admit I'm a pussy - compact up front and 11-28 out back.
The short, very steep hills round here means a low gear is required, although all things being equal I can cope with 11-25 at the back.
As of the autumn I will be making the leap to mid-compact 52/36, and hopefully by the spring I'll be strong enough to ride that with the 11-25. Can't see me going any bigger on the chainrings or smaller on the cassette, however. Unless I move to Norfolk.
As an aside, is there any mathematical reason that a 10T cog can't be made?
@KogaLover
The one that's a bit of a dick.
@KogaLover
From @universo a few weeks back "Richard Gear — The final sprocket on the back of a cassette deemed good enough for climbing" - it's in the Lexicon comments " I just can't go on" - from an Officer and a Gentleman
Electric groupsets? What the fuckety fuck is THAT all about?
@RobSandy
11T are the fewest number of teeth you can get on the current sized freehub. You'd need to go to a smaller radius freehub. Plus I suspect you may also find that by tightening the turning radius of the chain you will start to get chain issues and power loss and you may not have enough teeth "engaged" so chain skipping may also result. Finally you'd probably get through them pretty quick through wear.
Not sure whether I should point this out but......we do harp on about running 52/39 vs compact but then run 12/x cassette or even 13/x. A short while ago (running compact 'coz I'm old) I went to an 11/28 cassette. I then thought I must really be getting old as I found I don't often use the 11 vs when I ran 52/39 and 12/26. Then I looked up the gearing (25mm tyres). 52x12 = 114.6 inches, 52x13 = 105.8 inches but 50x11 = 120.4 inches. Don't knock that old geezer on his compact - they may be pulling a higher gear than you think. Of course if you are still young enough to pull 52x11 you are at 125.1, but lets not let scientific fact get in the way of good V science! My main cycling buddy still has not twigged why I pull away from him on the flats and downhill as I have 10 inches over his 50x12. 1 tooth more or less has a greater effect on the cassette than the chainring.