I’ve never been able to decide if choices are a gift or a curse; a lack of choices introduces simplicity but also with it the risk that the simple choices do not meet the demands of a complex world. An abundance of similar choices, on the other hand, often reduces the impact of getting things a little bit wrong, but also decreases the thoughtfulness in decision making. Finally, having many divergent choices mostly just leads to a lot of planning and ultimately indecision, assuming my experience in Corporate America is anything to go by.
These days, we tend to ride bicycles with 10 or 11 speed clusters made up of sprockets that are closely matched to their neighbors. This development removes the rider somewhat from the art of gear selection, a fact carried further by bar-mounted shifters; as gradients increase and decrease, we glide from gear to gear maintaining our cadence with hardly any consideration given to the ratios hard at work for us. It is a beautiful freedom to ride like this, but it is also another degree of separation between rider and machine.
I recently read an interview with Sean Kelly, who was discussing his defeat at the hands of Greg Lemond during the 1989 World Championship Road Race. With only seven sprockets at his disposal over a route slightly too hilly for a rider of his ilk, he was faced with a difficult choice: spare the legs on the climb with a 25T at the bottom end, or hamper his sprint with a 13T at the top end.
Kelly faced a tough decision: mount a gear that would carry him over the climb to contend the finale with the handicap of a 13T, or overload the cannons on too big a gear for the climb and never have the chance to go for the win in the first place. He deliberated over the decision while training on the course and finally decided for the low gear. Kelly made it over the climbs to contest the sprint, but his 53×13 was hopelessly outmatched by LeMan’s monster 54×12.
More recently, the Cycling world was aflutter about Tony Martin’s choice to ride a 58T front chain ring during a time trail. This wasn’t a display of bravado but rather a highly refined choice of chain line: knowing the speeds he wanted to ride, he chose his big ring in such a size that would provide the straightest chain line in the gear he’d be riding in during the majority of the race. The result was less friction, and a Tour de France stage win under his belt.
There is an art to gear and cluster choice that is nearly lost with today’s expanding sprocket ranges, but it remains within our grasp if only we are willing to seek it out. Don’t settle for knowing the maximum and minimum size gears in your block; know exactly which gears you have across the board, and understand what sizes you’ll be missing and gaining when switching between 11-23, 12-25 and 13-26 – there is more to it than just taking one off one end and slapping it on the other.
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@Gianni
I had understood the issue was bending the chain, and the additional wear of the chain rubbing along the side of the teeth on both the front and back.
I'm happy to hear this is bullshit, because now I can remove my little ring altogether.
@sowtondevil
I'd love to see a photo of that bike and if you still have it, I'd like to see detailed photos of that bike!
Spectacles of indecision, I love it!
interesting documentary on Dutch TV - You can use any cassette you want - when you use mechanical doping à la Fabian...
seeing Rasmussen saying that he feels this goes to far is hilarious!
http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/1387546
@marko I get that.
@frank Just one of the ∞ reasons I won't be mistaken for him.
@wiscot
I feel the same; I'm 10 speeds all the way through on all bikes now, even the bike with DT shifters (set to friction and gaps are irrelevant).
I like being able to swap wheels between bikes without having to mess about with swapping cassettes as well - not to mention that I find the 10 speed Campa Ergos to be more beautiful than the 11 speed design.
Yes, but those were also freewheels and weighed more than most modern wheels. My cassettes all wore out in the same week last summer, which meant I dropped about a grand on new ones all at once. But that's the first time I've had to change them out. I normally just maintain my drivetrain and replace the chain ever season or so and the blocks last a while.
Campa has a number of spiders and you can get them separately if you really only ride in a few and wear those out. (I am blessed to ride in a town where the terrain variety means I cover almost all of them pretty equally - except maybe the 12 because most of my descents land on a stop sign.
@sowtondevil
Are you the technical director for the UCI by any chance ?
Seriously, that's pretty impressive. On the same frame too ? How do you maintain the chain and sprockets ? I would have thought just replacement issues would have necessitated an upgrade.
As for indecision, it's all relative innit. I guess once upon a time someone with n+1 'ordinary' bicycles in their mews house was wrestling with which diameter wheel to ride for the Queen Victoria Silver Anniversary Cup.
@Mikael Liddy
Not for anyone not living down under or in San Luis...
@wiscot
Exactly, my good man.
@frank
as a singlespeeder mtn biker, i find it refreshing and perhaps a bit redemptive that the single ring up front is the sheet now, no doubt selfishly, after taking so much heat for being the neaderathal and told I couldn't pick out a gear in a cluster any way, the right ring up front nor use rightly that shiftythingy on the R/L handlebars, since I get so confused to easily with all that tecknogoodies. Hell, I don't even use a front suspension fork, but do love 29r's
anyway, thats off topic. Buddy and I have discussed often the time frame where it seems that the break off was made, from having to make those choices, and sacrificing the gears to where we are today where we really don't have to consider that. I think it was the break from the 8spd stuff to the 9spd stuff. I remember having the 52/42 with 12-21 cogset, and it really killed. Since then, there has been concessions made and it doesn't have to be that way as many have said. I do love the 12t on the low down, and rarely find the need for a 11t, and its really only a pipe dream to consider I have the guns to be truly spinning with the souplesse the 53x11. But the 12t, it s different gear, and at times, possible if but momentarily. I do find though after we went to the 9spd goods, we were able to add that bigger gear, perhaps to the 25t on the granny, and that did really open up a good deal of territory for us, and forget about the new 12spd stuff, its just ridiculous and now there are gears we may rarely need or use, and perhaps it brings us to a moment in time that similarly mirrors what the mtn bikers are doing, in that we really should be able to toss away the small cookie and just ride the 53t up front all day long. Gear inches wise, if not why not???
Please find a link below to an excellent Gear Calculator. Enter your chain ring/sprocket details---select metric units of course---and enjoy:
http://www.gear-calculator.com/#KB=34,50&RZ=11,12,13,14,15,17,19,22,25,28&TF=85&UF=2099&SL=2
@El That's a handy site.