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Anticipation Shift

Rollin rollers into the sunset. Photo via @fabbricadellabici

I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn’t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur? We are getting soft… As for me, give me a fixed gear!

– Henri Desgrange

Whenever I encounter a challenging thought or idea, I recoil instinctively. On impulse, I assume I’m an expert in the matter and proceed as usual, no worse for the wear. The secret to success is your ability to overcome adversity, after all. Another secret to success, if we are allowed two on the same day, is to always take the advice of people on the internet, so long as you sort through all the opinions and cherry-pick the ones you already agreed with.

While I’m not an expert on taking advice, I am a bit of a virtuosity when it comes to the matter of giving it – especially when it is unsolicited. Please note, however, that while I am not drunk, I have a bit of a nasty case of manflu, a fact which I am certain will make me even more trustworthy.

As any fool can see, poor old Henri – however brilliant he was – was completely bonkers (genius and insanity often occupy the same mind). Despite that, there is a thread of truth to his reasoning, which is to say that gears are often used as a psychological tool rather than a mechanical one in order to tackle the various gradients we encounter during our rides.

We typically encounter a hill from some distance off, rearing up as though some careless road engineer had forgotten to tack the other end down. And, more often than not, we respond with the impulse to deploy the Anticipation Shift: downshifting prematurely in response to the sight of a big climb. Click-click-click-click, right down the block to whatever gear you imagine you’ll need in order to ride to the top of a hill whose gradient you can’t accurately judge and whose summit you likely can’t see. And just like that, all your momentum is gone and you’re left to fulfill your own prophecy of laboring with the gear all the way to the tippy top top of the climb.

To be fair, shifting is a bit of a dark art and takes ages to master. When to shift and when to power through is something one should feel, never see. There is either a laboring or an ease in your stroke that informs whether you should change gear. Please consult the below list for some tips on how to avoid the Anticipation Shift.*

The point of shifting is to maintain your cadence and spare the guns from overheating and causing a meltdown in the Engine Room. With that in mind, never shift more than one gear at a time, unless you know something specific about the climb that merits a bigger jump. If you are changing front chain rings, do so together with a synchronized two-cog shift of the rear in the opposite direction. (If you have widely spaced gears, one cog in the back might be enough.) **
Shift whenever you sense you are losing the ability to smoothly turn the gear over, never before. Smoothly is the operative word here; if you fall behind the gear, you will heap coals on the fire, burn the guns, and overheat the engine room. If you get ahead of the gear, you risk upsetting your rhythm by spinning more thereby putting additional strain on your lungs, which you will experience as acute pain.
If you encounter a short uptick in gradient, you have the choice to power over or to downshift and spin up it. This decision will involve a quick assessment of how closely the Man with the Hammer is lurking. If you have the juice, power over. You can even jump out of the saddle for a little extra V. This will keep your speed up and keep you from having to accelerate again after the pitch.
Always hit a climb at full gas, as fast as you can go – especially if you are coming off a descent and especially – especially – when you are completely jacked. Use your momentum to carry you as far up the climb as you can, get out of the saddle and slowly downshift as the speed scrubs and the guns lose their ability to smoothly turn the gear over.
The fifth bullet is here more for symmetry than anything else, but I’ll use this opportunity to remind you that shifting is the Domain of the Sissy, so if you can avoid it, please do.

* While these points hold true for any kind of riding, they are focussed on climbing.

** Remember, you can’t boast about climbing in the big ring on a compact; it’s only a big ring if it has more than 50 teeth, in which case it’s an outer ring.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

litvi says:

Nov 5 2015 at 5:05 pm

I'm still haunted by the shitty advice I gleaned from something Andy Hampsten said in an article a long time ago - they all got instructions to ride as small a gear as their legs could spin at all times while climbing, and to start this well in advance.

Stupid. Totally doesn't work. Say I can spin a 39 x 25 at 90 RPM on a given hill, I'd be rolling at ±18 kph. But if I'm willing to grind it out and dip down to 60 RPM for a minute, I can choose a 53x21 and roll out at 19 kph. The slightly higher velocity requires a little more work (physics and shit), and the interplay of multiple lever arms probably means I'm slightly less efficient (more physics and shit... but whatevs); but all this is made up for in spades when I crest over that fucker sur la plaque.

I like @VbyV 's pre-determined stroke count idea, because the finite number means you've either pedaled that many strokes, or you haven't. Deciding to "hold this gear as long as I can" makes it too easy to quit on yourself. You may be able to convince yourself and others (wrongly) that you didn't have any more power to lay out, but you can't deny you pedaled 7 strokes instead of 8. It's a fact, laid bare for all to see how you let the rest of us down.

Plus, there is a little cadence trick you can use to get the most out of your pre-counted strokes. You can actually accelerate while you're in a given gear instead of just maintaining it. (Or, at least you'll slow down a little less than you would have.)
EBruner says:

Nov 5 2015 at 5:58 pm

@VbyV

I have a trick I use to maintain momentum and challenge myself on uphills. When there’s a dip and you can wring out the block and make it to tuck before the uphill, decide how many strokes per gear you will take. Ride the big ring and little cog cog as long as possible, when the legs can’t hold cadence, shift down one and make 8 (magnificent, of course) strokes. Shift down one and take eight more. Keep doing this until the crest. Next time, try to take 10 strokes in each gear. Soon you’ll be pushing over the crest on the 11.

I do a very similar style of shifting up one cog at a time for set revolutions. making a game of it.
gilvelo says:

Nov 5 2015 at 7:52 pm

"How closely the Man with the Hammer is lurking".

That Fucker never leaves!

Well put Frank
litvi says:

Nov 5 2015 at 9:55 pm

@gilvelo

“How closely the Man with the Hammer is lurking”.

That Fucker never leaves!

Well put Frank

Right, but the hitch is: you never know where he is... just go for it, and if he finds you, he finds you. If he's gonna get you, at least you've done something to get stronger before he nabbed you. And if he doesn't find you...? Voilà la Volupte, non?
Major VVald says:

Nov 6 2015 at 12:03 am

Anticipation shifting is like premature ejaculation. No good for anybody, anytime. Please see Rule #5.

Pretty sure that advice to Andy back in the day was a nefarious plot by the euros intended to slow 7-Eleven down. Bob Roll didn't shift prematurely...then again, he was the lantern rouge on a lot of climbs. Better to be last with your dignity and V intact than windmilling the legs 100 rpm @ .05W.

@ VbyV: I like the set rotations per gear - gonna try that but need to find some longer hills first. Most here are too short to test the theory so I end up just sprinting up them. Fun to pass people on the way up, they have no idea what is going on.
RobSandy says:

Nov 6 2015 at 1:20 am

@frank

@Ron

I had a guy nearly hit me on a greenway because he felt it was crucial to pull out even though the driving lane was full of traffic. So he pulled into the bike lane and I had to do a full emergency stop to avoid him, which meant actually sliding on a locked front wheel (very leafy and wet out here these days) with the back wheel off the ground. I normally don’t engage drivers for the knowledge that it will only make things worse, but his window was down so I calmly told him that he really put me in danger and that this is a bike lane, not a car lane. And I quote, “I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!!!”

This sort of shit happens all the time. I'm very aware of motorists so I haven't had many really near misses, but the few I have I'm normally so shaken up I can't think of anything to say, so I just stare at them in what I hope is a menacing manner.

One of my mates' approach to crap drivers is to give them a big 'thumbs down' hand gesture with an accompanying sad face. I like it.
Teocalli says:

Nov 6 2015 at 2:05 am

@Sparty

What type of climbs are you monsters mashing up in the big ring? Your knees are still attached come the finish? When we plan to climb, the route takes us up and over several category 4s, 3s and 2s in a day. The pace is not civilized either. Other than the 4s, no one is in the big ring for the entire day unless they have a death wish. We have a special route here aptly named the Seven Climbs of Death. Even the elite racers in our group will not big ring it – not sure if any of us can and live to tell about it after 128kms. I am considered a climber in my group but I must actually be a wee sprout. I am removing my inner ring this evening. That will teach me.

Along the lines of "Did you see that fish that I hooked it was THIS big"...............?
antihero says:

Nov 6 2015 at 4:50 am

I'm with Monsieur Desgrange on this. My nine bike/winter commuter is invariably a fixed gear of some stripe. Need to go up? Pedal harder. Need to go down? Pedal faster. You have precisely as many gears as you need.

For this year's incarnation, I took an old Cervelo P2-SL frame and converted it to fixed-gear - these frames have little track fork ends instead of a vertical dropout, which makes the conversion a snap. Replaced the goofy aero bars with some proper road bars, and there you go.

48x15 gearing does about right for rolling terrain.
chuckp says:

Nov 6 2015 at 5:31 am

@RobSandy

It very much depends on the hill, sometimes hitting it full gas in the big ring (I now ride a 52 so can officially call it a big ring) and powering all the way to the top works fine, sometimes this results in sudden cessation of forward movement and/or crying, and you’re best to get in the inner ring and spin away.

Climbing out of the saddle is something I’ve worked on and can now do it for a bit longer, although it still feels like a struggle and my instinct is to go high cadence.

Practice what I call "Contador intervals." I actually do these on my spin bike over the winter. After warming up, I turn the resistance up and do out of the saddle "climbs" for 10 minutes with 3 minutes recovery inbetween. At least 3 reps, sometimes 4. Sometimes the same resistance each time. Sometimes increasing the resistance with each rep. Apparently, Contador likes to do 20 minutes out of the saddle when he's working on his climbing.

Seated, I'm more of a lower cadence "grinder" than a "spinner" when I climb. I sort of need the feel of "resistance" as I pedal. I feel like if I spin (or spin too much) when I'm climbing that I'm not getting any power. I often see people climbing who are spinning but their bike speed doesn't seem to match their pedal speed. And, more times than not, I can catch/pass them.
chuckp says:

Nov 6 2015 at 5:36 am

@nobby

I was once told my a gnarled old roadie (back in the day when I was a kindergarten student of V) that, rather than habitually shifting to a lower gear at the foot of a hill, you should shift UP and hit it in a slightly stiffer gear than your mind feels is appropriate. This gives you strength and also deals a hammer blow to the feeble minds of your fellow riders.

good article Frank, as always

Yes! You want to hit the base of the climb with power/bike speed not leg speed per se. Shift down (bigger cog) when both bike speed and leg speed start to bog down. The art to this is doing it before you actually lose it.

A corollary is that as you get to the top, shift back up (smaller cog) and power up and over the last part of the climb.