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.
@frank Ha! Good one! Your upcoming book must be in the comedy genre, you’d sell copies, I tell ya, copies. To your mum.
Unfortunately I think the sting has been taken out of the Marcus/Minion debacle by my move to Canberra and assimilation to the AusBorg. Like all the great unrequited romances, it was unsustainable and bound to flame out over time; I’e been worn down by awful beer, AFL and riding in sunshine in the middle of winter. It was great while it lasted but now it appears I’ll have to hand the role of mocking short, slow, questionably bred three fingered Melbournians to another suitably qualified velominati.
@scaler911
@Souleur Here in South Carolina. Most weekends are riding thru areas that involve off and on climbing — not awful climbing though. We have climbs referred to as Double-Hump and Little Mountain. There’s always a good share of climbing around here. I have been stocking 11-21 (Record, Chorus) and keep riding 11-21. I do keep a 13-26 in the toolbox. And have blended Campy cassettes to make an 11-21 when they became difficult to find.
It was a new 44 Record chainring that prompted me to add the 54. Races are usually won on small differences, so I decided to try 1 extra tooth on the Big Ring (relevant to experience with 53/39). I had been riding 52/42 and found that I prefer the 42 over a 39. And then found myself agreeing to mount a 54/44 setup to try (4 months ago ??) for myself. I feels perfectly natural.
@scaler911
Ah: that makes more sense (I was making light of the idea of having them locked in the position in the pic). How do you like them? I’m not sure I’d want them for climbing, but I could really profit from something like that to strengthen my left side.
@Souleur
I listen for the sound of my isolated shift. I time my moment to shift early back to the front of the cassette (once or twice) when coming over the top of a climb. Well before the crest. Unrelenting, although the Saturday group seems to thrive on this.
@frank
Cog ring, whatever – you knew what i meant you over-sized Dutch cunt.
@minion
Are you saying we should start seeing other people?
@unversio
Huh? Wha? Meaning it, the 54/44 feels perfectly natural. A perfect Holiday (experimental) gift for most any cyclist!
@DerHoggz
The new external bears are possibly the single biggest improvement to bike gear in the last decade. The difference is night and day and for mortals makes a bigger impact than frame material for stiffness.
@Steampunk
That’s an awesome saying and I wish I’d remembered that on rattlesnake. But I don’t get what you’re on about with the minute? Of course a minute doesn’t change – when is a minute not a minute? Are you in the flux capacitor?
Or are you saying you have a minute, period, before you blow up? That’s the old Rule VV thing there, so you just have to learn to pace yourself to climb at 90% instead of 100%. Its like JPEG compression; 90% and 100% are almost as fast, but you burn through your fuel way more slowerified.
@Ron
Or, as Museeuw says, “I don’t like the compact. The outer ring isn’t big enough for climbing.”
You’ll have to post pictures; you could need a front mech, chain, and BB. Or none of those things. It depends.
@Ron
It sounds like you need to add a touch of finesse to your shifting, cowboy.
@scaler911
That just shows you what happens when you ride without socks. You instantly break the spindle on your crankset!
@Steampunk
My question is how easy are they to swap with a Campa BB? I’d love to have them for training, but really just for specific days – like for the Thursday Interval Hell ride or some such. Not for the 200km endurance training ride. I just blacked out thinking about it.
@Marcus
Really? You ignored the double decker and went for this one? I’d call you an Assie Jackhole, but I hate being redundant.
@Oli
Yeah, cross chaining is definitely more resistancified – and my use of that “word” should tell you all you need to know. But given an emergency shift under load, I’ll cross chain over risking a Schleckanical.
As for the mechanics of the big ring / big cog, I’m still working on it. The back is easy; turn a wheel by the axle and then by the tire, the farther out your point of rotation, the mo’bettah.
The front is much more complicated, because the rotation point and crank arm length are fixed, and you’re moving the chain along that lever to create your mechanical (dis)advantage. I have to jump back on the physics books (or Wikipedia if I can figure out how to make it reliable) to work out the math on it again. It basically boils down to the difference between torque and power.
To test it though, pick a gear that you can turn fairly easily on a moderate climb that has an equivalent (without crossing) in both chain rings – ride the climb in both gears and see what feels better. Its the big ring every time.
Not to disprove my own claims, but I was wondering today if the effect I’m feeling has more to do with being in a bigger cog in the back than it does with the big ring in the front.
I’ll quote myself:
@Steampunk
@frank
I hate them. If you ride them, you will too for the first couple weeks. The best plan is to ride them 2 days on, 1 off at first. Don’t plan on going out for more than 40K the first time. They will tell you with a vengeance where/ what side is weak. I’m assured by my friend who’s been riding them for years, that of all the different things he’s used for training, PC’s have given him the biggest gains. Other people say it’s a gimmick. Jury’s out for me right now.
@Frank, my set is Octalink, but they come in square taper and BB30 too I believe. One day a week won’t be enough on them. You have to go “all in”.
What I will say, is having ridden them for a couple weeks now, I can tell that where I hurt after a ride, is probably going to be much stronger and helpful next spring when the RR season starts and KT2013 rolls around.
One more little tidbit; unless you’re supremely comfortable with your bike handling skills, ride them on a trainer the first couple of times. Things you take for granted like speed bumps, clipping in after a stop, trackstanding (that’s impossible on these) and cornering are issues that you have to actively think about, or you will crash/ die/ and/ or take hits to the nut sack (speed bumps).
Oh, and they’re expensive. Look for them on e-bay. ~$500 is a good deal.
What a day it has been at Velominati!
Marcus and minion make up.
And Oli suggests that there might be actual science behind Frank’s cycling ideas!
@frank
Shit, I also forgot that there’s a version that you can “lock out” so they work like normal cranks. But no sense having a crutch I say.
@frank
(Redd Foxx voice) Frank, you big dummy! The Big Ring pulls more chain length on each rotation. The Lil Ring pulls less chain length on each rotation. Big Ring — Big chain distance — more revolutions on the cassette. Lil Ring — Lil chain distance — less revolutions. Dummy! Now go unload that bath tub off the truck!
@Oli
You are a proponent of cycling in absolutes. It’s 100% vector math (forces) and true grit.
I had an old coach (who was old school 30-years ago) insisted on not just riding a fixed gear all winter, but changing the gear daily by extremes based on other exercises like weights and hill running. The objective was to increase the gear size I could ride tempo at by spring.
what I ended up getting better at was changing cogs, chain rings and sizing/tensioning the chain. This was also before pinned and ramped chainrings so riders often switched inner chainrings from 42/44/46/48 from race to race.
I guess now with 10 or 11 cogs The gearing range is not only larger but has less gaps. Add the ease of shifting and one is more inclined to maintain rpm rather than push on the pedals to get stronger.
I llike Frank’s choice of DT shifters in the lead photo as I think DT shifters force one to consider the shift vs. pushing harder on the pedals when the pitch changes.Beyond nostalgia, I enjoy DT levers on my current winter bike for this reason.
Having spent many, many winters on a fixed gear, and more recently reading about the power cranks I think they better address strengthening the pedaling circle of which was the purpose of the fixed. But ultimately one needs to practice big gear/ low rpm and low gear/high rpm to develop true souplessa, wether that be with a fixed, PC’s straingauges or just going back and forth with the front mech.
@unversio
Sadly, you get the award for “doesn’t get it”. You just defined the difference between gear sizes. Completely different thing. We are talking about same gear inches, different ratios of gears and what the mechanical advantage would be.
@scaler911
Dear god you’re making it hard work to like you. Just when we might have forgotten about your indiscriminate gender preferences, and then get over the hump of your power cranks, you go and put fucking platform crank brothers pedals on them. Gaaaarrrrr!
At least your explanation of how to use them goes a little way to justifying using them. You must be intensely fucking irritating (or absolute dynamite) on a date.
@frank
A gear inch is a gear inch. Anything else is in your head — no less real, but probably not amenable to explanation in terms of Newtonian physics.
@Marcus
Yes I am, although I’ve found it best when I can’t actually see you. I’d advise new suitors to do the same.
@minion Canberra has changed you.
@frank
Surely this conversation is about useful ratios, is it not?
It’s all well and good to talk about 53/27 being the same as 38/18, but what happens if you come to that hill and you need another gear? Shift it up to the 28? 30? 34? Then what? Then you’d find yourself with a bunch of completely fucking useless ratios on the other end.
Ideally, the gearing should be set up in such a way that at reasonable race pace, you’re roughly in the centre of the cassette so that you have scope to shift up and down as required by the nature of the terrain you’re riding over. That’s also the primary reason that maunufacturers have evolved a greater number of gears on the cassette so that the ratio’s can be as tight as possible.
You might have a more “efficient” system in that you are reducing the friction of the chain engaging with smaller chainrings, but that is offset by the amount of mass that you would have to carry with a 53 chainring with a mountain bike cassette up to 34 on the back. I’ve no idea which one is the greater evil, but I sure as fuck know which one looks better.
@frank
Yeah, 13×17 was what you wanted ’cause it looked so fucking cool. You of course would be spat out the back on the first hill, but you’d look cool doing it.
You were right about the timing of modern cranks with the smaller BCD that enabled chainrings t ogo down to 39, but I know for a fact that Campagnolo made either a 40 of 41 that fit on Super Record cranks around about 88 or 89.
I recall being looking on very jealously as my teammate showed his off before the start of the Provincials that year on a very hilly parcours.
@frank
@unversio I surely don’t unnnerstan’ them vector diagram things , but I do know how gears work thanks, man.
@minion
Don’t get your panties all in a bunch. Those aren’t mine. It’s a photo off Google (notice the pez cycling credit in the photo you sheep fucker). I ride Speedplays. And, weirdly, I bought mine off ebay, and one crank is anodized black and the other gold. Just adds to the aesthetics I think.
Alright, I’ll testify. I live in Colorado, and I like to ride long climbs like most of us here. Mostly, I ride a compact with a 12-28 that I use in the mountains and over passes like Loveland, Monarch, Hoosier, etc (either from the east or west), or Pikes Peak Highway which opened to cyclists the entire month of September for $10. I also ride a 53-39 with a 12-28 that I usually use on longer rides along the front range but don’t require 1000m of climbing in 2 or 6 Km, BUT, I can still climb with. That’s what I love about where I live…go west to the mountains and big climbs, go east to the high plains and flats and wind.
What and how you ride surely depends on where you are at, at the time. Last summer, the VMH and I went home to southern Illinois for a short vacation over Independence Day with great expectations of long rides on back country roads. Foolishly, and I’m not sure why or how, I packed the compact. While riding the old stomping grounds, I quickly determined that my recollections of the hilly terrain were greatly exaggerated. I quickly spun out of the high gear. Only the humid air, “damning elevation” of 165m, and the mosquitos of the Heartland held me back. The mosquitos were the worst.
My point is is that the big ring and cassette that you use ought to be for the terrain you ride, and mash it hard. For the average dude, if you want to use a 53-39 and 11-26 around Colorado, I’ll see you at the bottom of the next pass. For the rest of you, don’t drink all the beer before I get there.
@niksch
Dude, you need to work on your cadence.
You’re spinning out at 68 km/h at 130rpm based on the development of a 50×12.
FWIW I’m on a 50×34, 11-25. The 11 helps. The only time I’ve ever spun out was descending a gradient of more than 10%.
Anyhoo, my point is that I’m pretty happy with the compact thus far. Maybe if I turn into a real man in the next year or so, i’ll go back to the 53/42 of my yoot.
@mouse
Or to summarise, you don’t want your testicles to hang so low that they get caught up in your chainring.
@scaler911 Keep your pretty words to yourself cassanova I”M A BLOKE.
Fair enough then, suppose that gets you off the hook this time.
@Marcus
I know, now I’m just like the rest of you climatically spoiled fucktards. On the upside, I might be working in your Parliament soon (for realsies!) I’ll introduce you to Peter Slipper when you come visit, you;ll get on like houses on fire.
@Ken Ho
You do get more clearance with a compact…
Nah, I’m not really having a go at @niksch. Horses for courses. He’s got a system that works for him. That’s awesome.
If I had the funds to get a second bike, I’d probably go with a standard 52/42 just so I could have the choice.
@minion
Jaysus. Parliamentary democracy will never be the same.
You gonna be Christopher Pynes’ (weasly little cunt) scriptwriter?
@mouse
I’m just happy I can get my fat ass up some of these mountains. The flat terrain in Illinois felt like cheating.
@Nate Ah, lawyers and physics; like oil and water.
@frank
Fixed your post for you — the point being, if the gear ratio is the same, the effort to do a certain amount of work is the same, no?
@Oli
And I know you know. I often await your superb logic with other threads. The vector diagram only provides an understanding (realization) that some forces (most) are acting in the direction of the chain. And some component forces (slight) are acting perpendicular to the chain. The greater the angle of cross-chaining, then there is a greater component (force) that is acting to kill your chain and cassette. Your logic was 100 percent. Frank is possibly working out some other theory.
@Nate
No, in fact. If the gear size is the same, depending on where your points of leverage are in the system, you will have a better mechanical advantage.
As for the quip about the Dutch and physics, go get an education, you cretin! Most of the country is below sea level; takes some serious engineering to keep the country from drowning.
(Business Time just came up on a Genius for Audioslave’s Original Fire. WTF?)
@frank I used the same “truth” with leverage when I rode 177.5 cranks. Great for chasing down after a climb, but not so good for climbing. The rotations (cadence) is longer and tough to maintain. 172.5 cranks would do better in climbing. Oh please tell me that I’m “getting it” — oh well shit!
@frank
If the gear inches are the same any increase in “leverage” between the big ring and small ring is compensated for by stepping the leverage back down with a different gear in the back. E.g.,53×23 and 39×17 both develop 4.8 meters on a standard road bike for one crack rev.
There is research out there. It has little to do with keeping the Low Countries dry but it suggests there ranges of efficiency and these depend largely on chain tension and sprocket size; larger sprockets seem to have less friction so you may be right that you are better off in the big ring and bigger cog than in the smaller ring and smaller cog. Interestingly, this means that a bicycle drivetrain is more mechanically efficient if you are spinning rather than mashing. It’s not a function of leverage, however.
@frank
Also: Apologies in advance for exposing you to research — I momentarily forgot your aversion to it.
@Nate
You’re missing the point completely. We’ll sort this out when we finally get around to having a ride together.
And I have no aversion to research, smart arse, but the trouble with you lawyers is you always believe everything your read. Didn’t your mamma tell you something about that?
@frank
Missing the point of the article, or your theories on chainrings and Newtonian physics? The general point of your article is one I understand well. If it’s the latter, I don’t think you’ve formulated them yet, and I thought you’d find Springer, et al. interesting food for thought, my gratuitous dig notwithstanding. I think it supports your assertions, but comes to a different conclusion about why. Curious about your reaction to it.
Once your mechanical theories are in a more developed state I look forward to testing them out on a ride together, although I suspect they will only reach their fullest development with ample marination in ales. And if you think lawyers believe everything they read, you probably need a new lawyer.
@Nate Thanx for digging up that research. I needed it.
And ordering a new chain for Winter.
@Oli
I agree. I spent last year mashing the big ring in hopes that it would make me stronger. Perhaps it did in a minor way, but I have learned that judicious use of the appropriate small ring/cog combination allows you to keep momentum and still save the legs. I was able to put this in practice on a century ride a couple weeks back where I closed a large gap between myself and a young (20 something rider), and then maintained a gap all the way to the end. I knew he was mashing the big ring all day long and could see the overall fatigue of the miles and time on the bike taking its toll. I know it was a matter of time and he would not be able to stay up with me once I made the effort to gap him.
I have commented elsewhere that to me the biggest advantage to STI shifting has been the ability to drop the big ring and simultaneously grab a handfull of cogs to maintain momentum to climb and stay on the wheel . I was never a smooth shifter back in the day of DT shifting so I basically found a suitable gear and rode my bike like it was a single speed with only major adjustments being dictated by the terrain. Needless to say some of the same rides I do today with signficant souplesse, are the rides that kicked my ass back in the 70’s . Notwithstanding the fact that I engaged in social behaviors that were counterintuitive to VO2 max and rode a 30 lb steel bike, the ability to always be in a gear that facilitates easy spinning is likely a factor for the difference in performance.
All things being equal, I will say that dropping the 28 cog on an 11-28 cassette in favor of 12-27 has been a good move for me. I feel like I was getting weaker by depending on the 28 to bail me out on climbs I could do with the 27 and only slight increase in heart rate. The most noticable drawback has been the loss of top end without the 11T. However its only on the descents and I am arguably fast enough downhill in the drops, perhaps too fast given the potential to have a deer jump out of the woods and cross the road in front of me. As others here have said, it is not a lack of ratios that hold me back as much as it is the limitations of plane of fittness and conditioning mediated by physiology. At 58, there is not much I am able to do to improve those parameters as much as I can with smart shifting to preserve my legs over the distance.
@GottaRideTodat Good post, I have been wanting to check and make sure that people know the little ring is good for training the aerobic system, and that it’s no good being able to mash a big gear for 20 minutes if you’re going slower than everyone else and can’t respond to changes in pace.
Interesting indeed.
I played with the 100+ cadence after switching to road from mountain right around 2002-3. Of course, the big expert was Chris Carmichel, I mean he was coach to the world’s best! Or so I thought at the time. After struggling with a nice fast spin, I realized that I needed to do what was right for me. And I slowed down to 80-95. That and some better understanding of how a cat 5 peloton works (it doesn’t) made me a better rider. Then I started riding the track….