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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@Ron
+1. I'm now into season 3 on my #1 (and only) By the end of spring last year, I found that the compact just didn't work for my legs or the terrain I ride (Prairie flat/foothills of the Canadian Rockies). Due to budgetatus limits, I had consigned myself to a long life of compactedness. Lo and behold, Mrs. TheVid got me a 53/39 for Christmas. Hello flying descents! No more spinning out at 65.
I must say that I don't really think too much about the details of my cassette. I just ride by feel. If I feel like I'm spinning too much, step up some. If my legs are lugging on a false flat, step it down a notch. Even though I know I have a 12-26, I don't really know where I spend the most time. After a few long rides though, I could definitely feel the shortcomings of the compact though. Don't know how I'll feel about the standard, but I'm sure looking forward to the ice melting of the roads around here...
Since we're talking about cassettes...On my cx bike I'm having something odd happen, thought maybe someone would know what is up.
When I'm in the biggest cog and shift out one, I get a buzzy BRRRMP sound that I can hear and also feel. SRAM drivetrain. I've had this happen when I'm in the biggest cog and try to shift in one more, it doesn't want to go and chew up my spokes. But now it's happening when I shift up/out. It of course has to be the chain rubbing on/between the cogs, but I'm not sure why it's happening, or how to fix it.
Anyone experience this? (sorry to have to include vague comic book sounds!)
@Ron
How recently have you replaced cassette/chain? How big is the biggest cog? Do you hear more noise in the biggest cog than the others when just pedalling? Does it shift perfectly in every other gear, or just in some other gears?
My goal has always been to ride the same gears Jens rides:
11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-12
Rumor is he has the 12 on there for the toughest of climbs. It has never been used.
@frank
Hangs head in shame......
Am I about to get excommunicated?
@Ron
I'm going to jump right in and draw a conclusion without all the facts, Velominati styleee. Facts, as I think Frank once said, they just get in the way....
The noie you hear is the well worn chain skipping right over the well worn teeth of your second to last cog! You feel the slippage and you hear brraaaap then the gear engages. New cassette, new chain. Change your chain more frequently.
@frank
When you're right you're right. Spot on. Only maybe more so!
@frank
Agree, many routes I can ride only on the 50, cross chaining too often. You find you can punch over the rollers in the 50 on the low end of the cassette, where you might engage the Spanish flick (Down on the chainrings and cassette in one smoove motion) on a standard crankset.
But it is what I have, and what I have must be ridden.
@Mikael Liddy
And with due respect to the Keepers, wtf with no VSP for TDU?
@Souleur
But the problem is that single rings on MTBs are pretty much useless as all-around bikes. If you're a lift-jumper, fine. But if you like to actually pedal up that hill as well as down it, single rings are laughably inadequate, and the worst thing that's happened to mouton biking since someone said the word "Freeride".
Maybe there aren't real mountains where you live, and if that's the case, my sincere condolences. I still run triples now, and am not opposed to doubles, but will never buy into this single ring nonsense. This will vanish as a fad before you can say "bar ends".
Back on topic - do so few of us even *try* to obey Rule #90? I run 11 speed, and I cross-chain like a mo-fo, because at 50x32 I only very, very rarely have to concede my weakness and inadequacy and drop to the 34. And when I do, my head hangs in shame and a river of filth pours from my lips, and the faces of those I've dropped cackle menacingly in the dark echoes of my mind. These are not moments I'm proud of.
That said, I think of my bike as having not 22 speeds, but 12.
1 x 11, and The Gear of Shame.