Disregarding my Schwinn Typhoon, I started keeping score with my 1976 Peugeot PX 10 LE. It came with a Stronglight 52 x 45 and a 14 x 21 five speed freewheel. I always thought this Peugeot was set up for the pavé of northern France with those gears and wire-wrapped and soldered 3x tubular wheels. Yet according to Peugeot’s advertising, this is what the boys rode in the Tour de France. Chapeau! Since this was my first real bike, the coolness of this Rule #5 rig was lost on me. The uncoolness of Mafac brakes and Simplex derailleurs was not lost on me and over time I swapped out many of the French components for Campagnolo ones but the Stronglight crankset was worthy and it stayed the longest. I found a drilled-out 42 inner ring. Surely Bernard Thévenet would approve of that. It was not such a taskmaster as the 45 and scored very high on the cool scale.
Eventually the 52s went to 53s and the 42s to 39s and there they stayed.
Post-Peugeot I lived on the sandy moraine called Cape Cod. It is rolling, easy-to-ride country; there were no steep, long climbs and the default 39 inner ring was too small for the Cape. Some switched back to 42s but our LBS had a handful of Campagnolo 44 tooth inner rings and a few of us installed them. It didn’t occur to me at the time but I was reverting to a more modern version of my original Peugeot gears. This was not a chainring for the early season but once summer arrived, it made perfect sense. The shifts between the front two chainrings were subtle and smooth. It was all good until we ventured over to a proper climb on the nearby island of Martha’s Vineyard. That climb, known to us as the hill-o-death, started off steep and never eased (this was pre-Garmin world, an estimated 15% grade). It actually was the kind of climb where if you were going to have a heart attack, it would be here. The 44 worked, it just meant most of it was done out of the saddle and the pain cave entrance was lower down. But, it may have been a faster way to get the job done. There was no in-the-saddle spinning going on; it was just more heaving of bike and body trying to turn over the shortest gear the 44 would give up.
I came to Maui armed with the 53 x 39. Earlier on Kauai, I once felt shame and horror as an older dude with stick legs passed me on the Waimea Canyon climb. Those sorry sticks were whizzing over a vile compact crankset. It gave me pause. But on Maui the 53 x 39 got the job done, until I did Maui’s version of the hill-o-death, The Wall. I got up it, but it wasn’t pretty or easy. Something was going to break doing that: knees, heart, chain, pedal, more likely part of me, rather than the bike. I was on Maui for the long haul and the Wall was not going anywhere so I opted for a compact crank.
My above prologue leads me to this, my theory of relativity. The terrain dictates the chainrings. You want a 52 x45 on your bike, stay away from the Pyrenees. If you have a compact crankset on there, there had better be some big ass climbs out your front door. But here at Velominati we like to quantify our suffering. My math is as weak as my VAM but I’m working on a calculation with correction factors which would determine what kind of crank one should have on their bike.
((GL2 x %Gr) 1/age) Bf x BPf x Df
Where:
GL = length of toughest grade encountered on Sunday ride.
Gr = Steepest sustained section of GL.
Bf = Belgian Factor, also known as Museeuw. The need to always ride in the large ring, always.
BPf = Big Pussy Factor, inverse of Bf. The inclination when a climb begins to sit when one might stand, to shift down rather than up.
Df = The Dutch factor, this is a terrain correction for sea level riding, as the Dutch do along the North Sea.
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@Chris
You're doing it wrong... I spin to win also, but the strong folks who stand and in the correct gear generally stretch out on me. If by 'downshift' when standing you mean shifting to a smaller/harder gear in the back, that is correct. If you mean you shift to an easier gear, that is why you are going slower standing.
In order to hammer it along faster, try pulling up at the back of the stroke then using your weight to push down the front, there is far more leverage in your body weight than you could ever generate sitting while hammering a gear that is one, two or more teeth easier.
But it is harder, I find exhaustion quicker standing than sitting. Usually I use it to switch up the muscle groups used, when tired in one position, I'll switch. Also I find switching to standing when there is an abrupt change in rise helps to keep the pace smooth.
As for gearing, the Flemish Compact is well established as more manly in the previous article (prepare for the onslaught of compact apologists and standard crank evangelists, haven't we all been through this before? Where's the prozac), but what the hey.
Does it really matter what you have on your bike at that precise moment, as long as you are pushing the hardest you can handle? Non.
I run 53/39 x12-27. Which gives me a nice range (39x27 for tranquilo days @ 10%+, or over 16%). But I don't race, which leaves me thinking that a 50/42 might be optimal for my day-to-day purposes...
@ChrisO
Four bikes, two standard, two compact. The standard cranksets are on aluminum bikes, the compacts are on a steel and a carbon bike. The aluminum bikes get the lion's share of the kms. Just worked out that way.
@Beers
Whilst I think we should take that as given, it's not part of the equation that I'd like to dwell on. It wouldn't be good for the picture I like to paint in my mind that helps hold the thoughts of pain and self doubt at bay.
Pay it no mind @Chris, I was making a tongue in cheek reference to the 'you're doing it wrong' meme, the witless trying to be witty etc.. give the other a try and see how you go, and rest in the knowledge it's not my style to put others down, those in glass houses and all that..
Climbing while standing looks best. Gear accordingly.
Even mentioning riding a compact rule V violation, at least that's how I read The Rules. As in everything else relating to setup of one's steed(s), we should look to the Professional's & Merckx for guidance. How many hatdmen of the peloton roll anything beyond a Flemish Compact? If you want it easier, first get a 12-28, or a Wi-Fli & roll 12-30 or some such nonsense. Actually if you can't ride a in a 39-26, then you need to Rule V & train harder. Just sayin....
@Beers No offense taken. If people being wrong on the internet bothered me, this is the last place I'd come to.
I will give it a go, my climbing does need a bit of refinement. It'll have to be hill reps though, it's pretty flat round here.
@FNG
FFS! You might as well tell @ChrisO to wear a helmet. I think it's widely recognized that tearing your knees apart just to look pro has little to do with rule 5 and alot to do with the imperfect amount of dumb. If your knees and the terrain you ride allow a standard then fine but there'll always be a bunch people out there on compacts that are far more acquainted with rule 5 than you'll ever be.
To quote Samuel Dumoulin "J'utilise souvent un chainset compact, je gagne souvent. Il n'importe pas si c'est une étape s'élevante ou une étape plate, je contestera pour la victoire. Il n'importe pas où vous courez ou ce que vous courez, il est comment vous courez. Je donnerai un coup de pied également votre âne, vous les pandits d'amateur."*
*This quote comes from the internet so it's authenticity is unquestionable.
I run a compact for a few reasons.
1, It came on the bike, 2, I'm 83kg (broad shouldered), 3, The city I live in is named after the mountain it's built around, so hills are everywhere.
That being said, A compact should NEVER be paired to anything larger than a 23. 21 straight block is preferable.