Changer de Braquet
Some people are supremely good at it, reducing complex situations into matters of simple black and white. This isn’t my particular area of expertise; I enjoy wading through the pools of ambiguity a bit too much to go about bludgeoning this beautiful world into absolutes. In fact, I would venture that delighting in nuance is part of what distinguishes La Vie Velominatus from the simple act of riding a bicycle.
I’ve spent the summer wrapping myself in the Rules handed down by the Apostle Museeuw during Keepers Tour 2012, with particular emphasis on Rule #90. Climbing Sur la Plaque is a cruel business, rising upwards under the crushing weight of physics as you fight to maintain your rhythm and momentum. At first, it’s a struggle to maintain speed on the smaller climbs as you learn how to change your pedaling action to compensate for changes in gradient. You focus on loading the pedals and forcing them around; the moment you lose the rhythm, gravity sinks her claws into your tires and tries to drag you back down the hill. On the other hand, if you maintain your cadence and power through the ramps, what is usually an intimidating slope will disappear under your wheels, making molehills of mountains.
If the Big Ring is a hammer, then not every climb is a nail. (I realize too late that referring to the road as a nail is sure to bring the Puncture Apocalypse on today’s ride.) The guns get more massive from the practice of Rule #90, but it comes at a hefty price: souplesse withers like a delicate flower as one seeks to conquer the art of mashing a huge gear. Indeed, one of the great pleasures in Cycling is to sense a certain fluidity of your stroke which belies the feeling of strength in your muscles as you continue to heap coals on the fire.
This requires an art altogether different from moving Sur la Plaque; it relies on turning the pedals at a higher cadence and shifting gear whenever the gradient changes. Rhythm holds court over everything else and is maintained at all costs. As the gradient steepens, the chain is slipped into the next smaller gear; as the gradient eases, it is droped back down. Not every climb suits this style of riding; the rear cluster must be matched perfectly to accomodate the changes in pitch such that maximum speed is maintained and the legs allowed to continue their relentless churn. When synchronized perfectly, it is the gateway to La Volupté; when not: disaster.
Such is the nuance of shifting gear, such is the nature of Cycling.
Now we are talking. Taking on the Big Ring all together until it becomes a weapon of choice. Heels down and all Hell! I am still riding 54/44 and often catch myself forgetting that it is 54/44. It feels great to power over hills and giving no visible (or audible) shift to the other riders around you. Some days I want for a 13/26 cassette, but continue to ride the 11/21 where my cadence knows what it is trained to do.
At the risk of (inappropriate) threadjack, this one (and the very appropriate picture) plays directly into a debate I’ve had with myself whilst focused on the V-locus: if I could place gear change command inputs anywhere on the bike, where would they be?
Remember that downtube levers were a huge inprovement to derailleur set ups. And then STI levers became derigeur for all modern bikes. In the last few years,we’ve seen electronic shifting make its appearance, but oddly, electronic shifters have left the “buttons” at the same place as the STI lever. Yes, there are remotes available, and TT bar options as well.
But…if you could put that button anywhere on the bike, where would it be? And remember….it theoreticlly doesn’t even need to have a wire leading there. Maybe on a glove? Or is the STI placement the ultimate refinement?
We now return you to our regularly scheduled thread.
As a developing pedalwan nothing gave me greater pleasure than when I was able to commute to work this summer without difficulty in the big ring the whole way.
Not that my commute is a challenge, but there are certainly spots where I used to be required to be in the small ring to make it up the hill, or even just feel like I wasn’t overcooking myself.
@eightzero
Be careful that you don’t get indiscriminate shifts from having a button where other actions are intended — reaching for water bottles…
Two things – first the Bianchi should be sporting Simplex levers…
Secondly – I read an article recently about the difference between the pros and the Average Fred when it comes to climbing. Fred will start down shifting to bring his cadence up while the pro simply stays in the same gear and the same cadence and just mashes on the pedals harder. I’ve been trying that a lot on (not so steep) gradients and it is amazing the damage you do to people when your speed, cadence, body position, breathing, and facial expression does not change as you start going up hill. It’s pretty demoralizing to them. I like it.
@Cyclops How much for the Simplex levers? And are they for sell?
I love competing against riders who have to mash every hill in the big ring, barely doing 50 rpm, because they confuse pride with idiocy and don’t understand that bike racing is all about saving energy. Every time I see them out of their saddles, fighting with their pedals, I smile and know there is potentially one less racer to worry about in the finish.
@unversio Just a picture from the internet.
It does confuse me a bit when folk smile after making it up a climb in the big ring but on their 27 tooth sprocket, they assure me they are not cross chaining?
Frank, that opening paragraph there… Spot on, just absolutely spot on as far as I’m concerned. Beautiful. Here in Denmark (as in many other places, I assume) there is a strange tendency, particularly in the media, towards ever-increasing simplification, for lack of a better word, of complicated aspects of reality. Journalists, politicians, so-called experts all seem to fight amongst themselves in order to be the first to reach the microphone – and then it’s as if they have all been coached by the same marketing guru, who has instructed them to begin every sentence by saying “Of course, …” or “Clearly, …” or even “Obviously, …” or similar, to create the illusion that they know exactly what they are talking about. The curse of the clever one-liner, as it were…
Life is simple, I guess (Ride Lots), but the world we live in is very, very complicated – and thank Merckx for that. As you say, this beautiful world of ours is wáy too rich in nuance and subtle shades of whatever, to be reduced to absolutes. Thanks for putting that into words in such an eloquent manner – made my day.
As for big-ringing it uphill: Hmmm – tricky. My old and creaky knees would not approve at all, I’m afraid (but that might well be a matter of having to HTFU?). However, while on the bike, I really enjoy the process of finding the exact right gear(s) to keep me going up and down hills at the same, steady but hopefully ‘souple’ cadence of 85 RPM or thereabouts.
Thankfully, cycling is as complicated a business as the world itself: one could write a book about it, perhaps?
@snoov
I think doing that is funny, and a good way to wear out your cassette and chain faster. I drop it to the small ring when I get back to the last two sprockets of the cassette.
However, some people have argued on these very pages (and Frank is one of them, though I don’t want to put words in his mouth) that climbing in the big ring offers a better mechanical advantage than climbing in the small ring.
I guess it really just comes down to what you can do without destroying your bike or your knees.
@The Tashkent Error Sounds like you are racing with the idiot bunch.
“As the gradient steepens, the chain is slipped into the next smaller gear; as the gradient eases, it is droped back down. Not every climb suits this style of riding; the rear cluster must be matched perfectly to accomodate the changes in pitch such that maximum speed is maintained and the legs allowed to continue their relentless churn. When synchronized perfectly, it is the gateway to La Volupté; when not: disaster.”
As a weak legged spinner, this is my holy grail but I know that I must also embrace slow steady mashing of the pedals to build up my strength otherwise any gradient worth climbing will remain HC (Hors Cluster – a climb of such steepness that a riders natural cadence must give way to slow ponderous revolutions as he runs out of ratios)
@Cyclops Let’s call that “The Brady Bunch”
I live in a flat, flat part of the country.
I once fucked over my front derailleur in a race that had a long gravel section. Somehow in the middle of a shift I bent the cage and it refused to drop down into the small ring again, just before a steep 1km long climb. I kept up for the first half, but finally my thighs began to cramp and spasm and I wanted nothing more than to sit in the saddle. It hurt my soul to watch the rest of the pack spin away up the steep grade while I turned my 53×23 like I was mixing cement. I lost eight pounds that day trying to catch back on through the rollers and basically time-trialing the last 20 miles.
If only I wasn’t such a little bitch, I could have ridden up that hill and lost the race in the last 400 meters instead.
@unversio There are Lebusques in every bunch. :)
@Cyclops amazing! Although the highlight for me might be that clogs n stache combo!
My new bike has a standard crank (my first), I chose it in a state of Rule #5 drunkiness. I’m still new in this life (less than 2 years total time, and a bit rogue- no sensei, try to extract knowlege from you lot) so this was a big jump for me. My hope is to come out tougher, stronger, faster and with some more skillful shifting -classier.
@unversio
That’s pretty impressive!
@The Tashkent Error
I truly understand what you are saying. But that emoticon of yours is a real shit head!
@graham d.m. Changing back to 52/42 real soon (next week). I needed to take a 54 with the 44 that I wanted to try. The 54 feels like throwing up a shotgun. I started keeping a flat drawer with 3 to 4 sets ahead of myself (wear and tear).
@eightzero I was browsing the sites of custom framebuilders and found English Cycles in Oregon. They did a bike with Di2 where the battery is inside the seat tube (charging port exposed on the side) and the other connection is in the stem. It makes for a really clean bike without the usual messy rats nest of wires under the bars on Di2 bikes.
http://www.englishcycles.com/custombikes/custom-di2-road-bike/
In my flat as Cameron Diaz’s chest countryside the hills ain’t a challenge. That’s why I really love them because they aren’t too hard to conquer and on the other hand they give me lots of motivation after getting to the their top. I love flat routes. I hate flat Cameron Diaz. \/!
I’m still pissed about a misshift I had three years ago when going into the small ring. I never liked small ringing it before that and I surely hate it more afterwards. I’d much rather stand and power through a climb, if I can, than sit and spin.
Wow, that Buick is amazing!
When I watch old races I still pay particular attention to how/when the dudes shift with DT shifters. I’m intrigued by this since I’ve had very limited experience with them & am not skilled in removing my hands from the bars when things go up. I guess it was just a necessity at the time.
@eightzero
I bed that somewhere someone is thinking, “What if we used the output from the power meter to make automatic gear changes to keep a constant cadence (obviously within load parameters) with a manual override – bit like a flappy paddle auto box on a car?”
I mean the computer power is already there and could easily be incorporated in the available space on any bike set up to run electronic shifting.
Wish I had some engineering ability because it would sell like hotcakes to time trialists – no need to move even a finger out of that perfect aero position.
I’ve been going the other way, meditating on Breaking the Rules a bit more, finding love for La Petit Plaque. Having a natural inclination to grind, it took me a while, but then I got the special chain-breaker in the post that allowed me to separate my ego from my crankset.
In a fit of pure rebellion I fitted a 50/34 a while ago. I didn’t notice much difference actually, though I find the torque curve of my legs goes well with it, and I like the slightly closer ratios. I change gear a lot less than I used to. I counted the teeth again the other day, not convinced that the rings were actually smaller.
THe new P3 has a 53 on it though, and I switch back and forth easily. The guns and the gradient determine the gear. I just obey.
@G’rilla
A custom bike with a sloping TT? No thank you.
@Cyclops
Amen. All of the passing moans and grunts of “I hate you” and “You make me sick” do indeed confirm that I am, at that point in time, appropriately dishing pain out on the rest of the pack.
@Ken Ho
If anyone else is going such a route, please let me know. I have a compact Campa Centaur crankset that I’m dying to swap out. Never liked it & I’d be more pissed at myself but at the time I was a serious goddamn neophyte and didn’t even know what in the hell a compact was, thus, I’m stuck with the bastard for the time being.
@the Engine
I’ve been avoiding a group ride I used to do for about a year now. The majority of the folks on it are total duds. Can’t see past their fucking power numbers to enjoy a nice bike or even riding one.
I went last week because I told myself I’d go to at least one this year and the season is winding down due to low light. One of the leading assholes decided we should start a rotating paceline. Okay, not a big deal. Then he starts yelling because his powermeter is telling him we’re surging too much. Fucking jerk. I left coaches behind with college sports, dude. And this is just a group ride, not some team with rules. Calm down.
He’d snap up an auto-shifter in a second. I’m sticking with my V-Meter.
@Ron
Is your Centaur a square taper?
@Ron
Obviously my invention wouldn’t stop people being total douches – indeed I’d see the cycling shit sandwich market as important – they’ll buy anything if the packaging is right.
I’m so old that it’s possible I’ve ridden more k’s with non-indexed dt shifters than anything else and poverty kept me with them long after others had gone to bar mounted STI’s. It is soooo satisfying to pass a douche with all the gear and no idea whilst astride a classic steel steed with agricultural technology.
For the record I’ve got a Cateye wireless thingy for distance, average speed, time and max speed – does me.
@Ron
I’ve been running a compact Centaur all summer with a 13-27 block. It was so successful in the Pyrenees I’ve never thought of going back to my 54-44 11-21. I’m crap at descending so running out of drive at 50kmph+ isn’t an issue
I still fall off the chain gang because I blow up not because I run out of ratios.
It’d be different obviously if I was time trialling in the Netherlands on a flat calm day.
Ron, just buy yourself a new crankset. Surely there is a rule about not putting up with gear you hate. I wasn’t sure about the 50/34, but thought I’d give it a go. Lots of hills where I live. Lots of hills. I’m the very living embodiment of the carbon craplet, so I need all the help I can get. Meditating on optimal gear selection help keep the V flowing.
@the Engine
These points are well taken. I don’t disagree. I don’t need more bike shit, I need more time to ride my fucking bike.
That said…I’d have more time to ride my fucking bike if I was independently wealthy from selling bike shit to the assholes you describe.
They want several thousand dollars for devices to tell you to pedal harder. A people buy them. Then along comes electric shifting. Spiffy. Me want. But $2000? Now think: electric servo, controlled by ePROM. Hooks to existing deraulleur, set up via a smartphone app (I.e.the indexing). Control functions via Bluetooth 4.0 button anywhere on bike. Total cost to produce: $50? Sell for $1000. Profit.
Then ride lots on days I don’t have to go to fucking work
@eightzero
You’d have to pay a fortune in royalties.
“Fucking work” sounds a lot better than my job though. I just sit at a desk all day. Mind you, I suppose it depends on who or what you have to fuck.
Royalties? To who? Telling me this is already patented? Seems to me Mr. PHOSITA would disagree. The basic idea of electric shifting dates to the 1970s.
@eightzero
I would think the three standard options are all pretty good choices – the levers as-as, the go buttons for Di2 (not needed for EPS), and at the tops where you can pop them with your thumbs.
You don’t want to make it so damn easy you shift by accident.
Or, you know, you go could rock it like the Gypsy and use a DT shifter and knock it with your knee.
@Cyclops
Hey, is that Cheech Marin?
@Cyclops
Get fucked.
Indeed. That was the genesis of Rule #90; Museeuw just kept pedaling like it was still flat. It just happened he was doing it up a 17% grade on the Gent Wevelgem route.
But to the point of the article, this isn’t a hammer for every problem; if you are strong enough to keep the speed up it is awesome, but when not, you have to know when to start dropping gears.
But yeah, its amazing how many people come up to a hill and just downshift at the sight of it, rather than beating the shit out of themselves until either the hill or their legs acquiesce.
@The Tashkent Error
Good for training, not so much for racing.
@ZachOlson
Gold!
@snoov
I don’t worry about cross chaining that much, though I try to stay at least a cog from the end.
On the other hand, I’m 100% sure you have a better mechanical advantage in the 53×26 than in the 39×19 or whatever the equivalent-sized gear ratio is in the 39.
@G’rilla
The quil stem choice has me baffled, but that is by far the best-looking setup I’ve seen for the Di2 concealment. Those rats nests are such a disappointment.
@Ron
Fixed your post.
@the Engine
I just died a little bit inside thinking of this. What a tragedy that would be for La Vie Velominatus!
@frank
Interesting, I wonder if the large rings (less friction) balances out with the straighter chain, which I’m assuming also has less friction.
In my mind, it all boils down to this: aesthetics. I’m all for tech to the extent it makes the ride more enjoyable. When the bike looks good; I look good. When I look good, the ride is that much more enjoyable. Mind you: the Principle of Silence is tantamount. a bike must be silent to look good.
Too many tech inventions skip the basic truisms of usability. If a bike is hard to maintain, that is more time fucking around getting it ready. It costs more in maintenance, meaning less dollars to be used in Looking Good, going for more rides, etc.
Case on point here is the fucking disc brakes. Oh, I’m sure they are great. But anyone who thinks hydraulic systems are easy to maintain has never worked with them. MTB, sure. Maybe ‘cross. But a road bike? Not convinced…until…someone comes up with a compelling and pervasive change in wheel design that offers advantages to removing the braking surface away from dual-use tyre mounting function of the rim. We Shall See.
And if we are going to redesign wheels…maybe someone can re-engineer the hub internal coaster brake. Imagine…yes…remotely controlled electrically actuated internal brakes. No cables to maintain. But…it has to Work with no fucking around. And of course have a monitor system preventing failures at 50+ kph with no warning. You though lawyer tabs were bad.
Wish I had a lab to work on this shit. Or I could go for a fucking bike ride. Merckx help me.
@frank
Yeah, this is a bullshit idea for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the point of your article. The bike responds to my needs, not the other way around.
@eightzero
Yes. I’m willing to be convinced, at some point in the future. And if I were young and made my living on a bike, I’d likely think differently about a lot of things (like wet roads), but on 80 or 90km/hr descents in days of old I never felt like I needed more braking power. These days, on a mountain bike? Hell yeah.
But then I like fountain pens with italic nibs.
If you were young, and made a living on a bike…likely you’d have someone to buy and maintain it for you too. They follow you in a car.
@frank
It actually isn’t a quill stem, but a custom made stem/steerer where the fork clamps on at the bottom. Mr. English makes some beautiful bikes.
Here is his superlight race bike, 10.8lbs of mostly steel: