Look Pro: The Flemish Compact
Everyone knows that the quality of one’s character is measured by the size gear they can push, particularly when going uphill. It is also a well-established fact that no self-respecting Flemish Pro would ever ride a Compact, no matter what condition their knees are in or how ferocious the gradient. Which, by extension, means that Compacts are for sissies. In fact, a true Flandrian would rather lose their national race than ride a Sissy Gear.
The first time we rode with Johan Museeuw, we were shocked to find him aboard one of his carbon/flax race machines – and a compact chainset. Not wanting to offend an Apostle by suggesting he’s riding his son’s bike, I asked him what he thought of it. “I don’t like it. The big ring isn’t big enough for climbing.”
The standard Flemish chainset is – and has been for as long as the Ancients have tracked these details in their sacred scrolls – either a 53T or 52T outer ring paired to a 42T inner ring. On the occasions when the parcours will see them scaling the Koppenberg or Kapelmuur, the Belgians make a concession and dust off their trusty 41T inner ring in order to shorten the gear by a whopping single tooth. In the mountains or over in Wallonia (the land of savages) where they are far from the prying eyes of their proud public, the Flemish hardman may allow his mechanic to bolt on a lowly 39T ring, so long as no one brings it up at the dinner table. (It is worth noting that in Cyclocross it is standard practice to ride a 38T inner ring.)
Museeuw has never been a grimpeur, not when he was a Pro and not now. On Keepers Tour 2013, we had the opportunity to do several more rides with him, one of which was over the roads of Liege-Bastogne-Liege. It was customary for him to suggest alternate routes that avoided the steep hills, and so it was that he tried to talk us out of riding the Stockeu. We rode up side-by-side, taking our time. As we alternated between pedaling and doing track stands, he asked if I was riding a compact. I feigned a combination of exasperation and insult at such a question and told him it was a Flemish Compact.
“Oh, a 39? Goed.”
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Belgian Compact/”/]
@xyxax
bummer, pasted drawing didn’t appear. Let me consult with my in-house IT department.
Here kitty, kitty, kitty…..
And I posted it under the wrong thread, but here ya go:
@Marko
Yep, and he was in constant violation on KT as well… if you were there, you coulda told him.
@frank
Sorry not confused, it was well past midnight and I should have been asleep hours earlier. I understand your general point. Sur la plaque as long as its a big plaque and a 42T small plaque is the biz. Many years ago I agreed without question. What I was trying to subtly imply is that now my 50T allows me to comply as much as possible with 49 + 3/4 year old legs that have never been bestowed with the capabilities of even your average Pro. Off to whimper into my late night cocoa and hope no-one looks too close at my bike next time it’s parked up.
P.S. Never ever ride big ring, big sprocket. That chain line is just so wrong.
@kixsand
That “intensive purposes” was, you know, a joke. Sometime irony can be so ironical (that was one too – ironical isnt a word. And stop calling him Shirley.
@razmaspaz
And dont start me on chomping at the bit
I’ll take your 53/42 and raise a 53/44 (O’Grady’s bike at Paris-Roubaix this year)
@Marcus
It’s intensive porpoises. Irregardless, I could care less.
Fondy and the Professor: despite the totally horrible rolled up shorts thing, it looks like Maurizio has a turkey platter backed up with a dinner plate up front.
@PeakInTwoYears
A little bit of election campaign quality this week from the man likely to be Australia’s next prime minister,
“No one, however smart, however well educated, however experienced is the suppository of all wisdom”
@The Grande Fondue
Yeah, but you need 15 years of doping to push that gear… oh, sorry, I mean just the once.
@Marcus
I’m so glad I’m not living there anymore… that country is (even more) doomed if he gets in.
@brett that makes at least two of us.
@Marcus
Wow. Pretty awesome. Almost as dark matter anti-brilliant as Merica’s last prez.
@brett
@PeakInTwoYears
For a laugh at this strange little country, please take a look at The Daily Show review of our election. Its pretty funny but pretty humiliating – worth the 7 minutes.
@Marcus
And to think that the public is dumb enough to hand that rabble of a party power… embarrassing.
@frank
Seriously?
If that’s the case, you have clearly never ridden a proper CX course.
Funny thing is that I don’t remember Seattle as being pan flat, or particularly dry.
…and, i’ll get my coat.
Randomly found this quote and thought it pertained to the topic at hand:
“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 derailer? We are getting soft… As for me, give me a fixed gear!”
-Henri Desgrange (First organizer of the Tour De France)
Discuss…………..
@mouse
They don’t know how to ride ‘cross in Seattle, but that subject we’ll save for October.
@wiscot Hey, hang on, man. Age is in the mind – no need to apologize. Time to invoke Rule #5 and just get the hell back out there. At some point, the 50 somethings and 60 somethings need to recognize their physical limitations. That does not mean we do not still aspire to smash it up the hills and wind it out on the flats. It is just a little much to assume that we can grind it like the 30 somethings. We can match them ounce for ounce int he bar! Wait until they get to our age – if they are still grinding a a 53/42 good for fucking them. In the interim, I will pound my 50/34 over the 116 km and 2500 meters of elevation that I did this Saturday. I just wish I had discovered proper cycling when I could crunch a 53/42. How about an elder Velominati Cogal?
@scaler911
I know that quote well, and I’ll see the backside of 45 next week…
Been riding fixed for 30 years and exclusively for most of the past decade. Aging knees brought me back to gears (52/42+13/22 on the vintage steel, 53/39+12/25 on the carbone).
But I still climb better and faster on a track bike with 52/18. Maybe it’s the stiffness of the frame, that bit less friction. Or maybe it’s the lack of options…
Firstly …there should be a new RULE concerning compact chainsets and their use (Rule 5 covers this, I know but I believe there is a need to be specific)
With the possible caveat: I purchased a bike on a tax-free scheme a couple of years ago and spent the full amount (£1000) because I needed a new training bike -to commute to work on obviously! Try finding a bike in that price range with a real chainset? I settled on a Cannondale CAAD8 105 (mainly because my race bike is a CAAD9 …same geometry). Unhelpfully, the bike shop were adamant that they couldn’t change it under the rules of the scheme (I suspect they were lying, lazy or both) so I had to take it as it was ….but not before I had ordered 110mm BCD 52 and 42 rings which were waiting when the bike came home. Guess what the first job was? Problem solved. The offending articles were subsequently deposited at the recycling bank. However, even though it’s fooled my clubmates, I’ve always felt fraudulent and cheap; and the BB30 bottom bracket has been problematic so I’m getting a BSA converter sleeve and installing an old 1998 Dura-Ace chainset with the ‘correct’ 53/42 arrangement: 12-23 for training and 14-25 for the winter …I do live in a lumpy part of the world! Oh, and I’ll happily confess to fitting a 39T for Costa Brava/Canary Island training camps.
The Saints wouldn’t ride a compact.
They also don’t do the job I do, so expecting me to do the same as them is a little optomistic.
@rastuscat
I’m not sure that the views of the seminal Australian punk band have been established on this matter.
I suspect Chris Bailey would need a compact but Ed Kuepper would almost certainly be old-skool, sur la plaque with DT shifters.
@Wold Man How about a rule stating that you can’t propose a rule and then in the next line propose a caveat to that rule applying to you.
I suspect that a specific sur la plaque ruling would be one of the least obseverved, for both budgetary reasons and the perceived benefits to older, frailer knees.
I do ride a standard 53/39 on my CAAD8 105 (also a tax free “commuter”) but I live in an extremely flat part of the country. I aslo run a 12-23 on the back because I hate the gaps in ratios if I can avoid them. It’s a Cannondale SI crank so I could swap the spider and rings for a compact set up for hillier riding. I’m off to France next week but a combination of having mislaid some of my tools and not being arsed because I know that I’ll be slow either way means that it’ll remain a standard even if I head off into the Pyrenees.
I suspect that @frank’ll be waiting a long time for somebody to invent the maths he needs to prove that riding in the big ring is better than an equivalent gearing on the inner ring but my standard did feel better on the cobble this year than the compact did last year. That’s probably more a case of adrenalin and being less fat this year but who knows.
@ChrisO
Showing your vintage (obviously similar to my own) with that gem. Many a drunken night watching The Saints play live in my youth. I always remember a gig on the Gold Coast where the band played for an hour, Chris Bailey came on and did an acoustic set of about an hour which included numerous anecdotes (accompanied by numerous swigs from a Vodka bottle), with the band joining him for the final set. Truly an amazing night.
yeah, a compact for Chris as he’d be too pissed to push a big ring
@Wold Man CAAD8 bottom brackets aren’t problematic they just need more Rule #65.
I’m something of an evangelist for the compact crank, so I’ll take the opposing view here. If you live in a hilly area, such as in the foothills of the blue ridge mountains in the United States, most people are better served by compact gearing — looks be dammed. I spent the better part of a decade trying to build more strength to spin up mountains in a 39 ring and once I switched to compact a year ago I’ve never looked back. No more killing myself at ~60 rpm up >10% grades. The hills are still hard, but my gearing better matches the terrain. I don’t intend to brag, but I also happen to be one of the strongest climbers in my area (evidenced by Strava and winning a mountain ascent time trial) so my view isn’t from the perspective of the 90kg non-climber who hates hills — I seek out the hardest climbs I can find.
The downside is that you spend way more time in the 50 ring and saying sur la plaque doesn’t have the same ring to it as when you don’t run a 53 in front. Check out the gearing that pros use to climb the Angrilu in the Vuelta and you can feel good about your compact setup. Choosing the right gearing for the terrain seems more pro to me than riding a single gear arrangement 52 weeks of the year.
@Marcus
Technically, he is not wrong.
@Marcus
“Turbo Palin,” indeed. Very funny. No need to go feeling superior, though. Our ignorant lunatics are far more numerous and better organized.
@frank I actually built the CX pretty much exclusively for gravel racing, so the compact sort of made sense, but the shifting is so bad that it’s in the parts drawer now, and I race gravel with the VMH on the back of a tandem now, anyway. Jealous much?
@PeakInTwoYears “perfectly well” might mean “is possible”, but the huge difference between my now-deceased steel 52/42 and the shifting on the carbon CX with a compact was so huge so as to make it not even worth it to shift in the front. I found myself putting 11-28 on the back just to avoid messing with the sluggish FD. It would eventually shift (or drop the chain), but it took some serious planning, not good for racing. The difference was also too much for CX or gravel, resulting in some fall-through-the-pedal situations. As for macho ranting, guilty. Something about the words “big ring” just seems to bring it out.
@Balexander A curious business. FDs can act weirder than they ought to be able to. They look so damned simple.
@dgran
“Check out the gearing that pros use to climb the Angrilu in the Vuelta and you can feel good about your compact setup. Choosing the right gearing for the terrain seems more pro to me than riding a single gear arrangement 52 weeks of the year.”
This. Having said that, I’ve never owned a compact, and rode STP a few years ago with a 12-21 cassette because I’m stupid that way. I’ve seen the light re bigger cassettes for bigger hills, though, and feel no shame in slapping on the 12-27 when the terrain calls for it.
@PeakInTwoYears
When I’m feeling a bit more like it remind me to tell you the story of the FD of my Giordana – if there was ever evidence for an inanimate object being possessed by a malevolent spirit then this is it
@starclimber
I’ll cop to riding a 53/39 on the tt bike, a 50/34 on the road bike, and a 46/36 on the cx bike. All of them are exactly the right gear for me, but I will admit not a single one of them looks pro.
@Chris
Chris, I’m also a Cannondale man and have the Si crank extractor and lockring tool, which you are more than welcome to borrow if it helps you (I’m assuming you’re based in the UK). I could also come up with a compact spider and rings if needed. This could overcome the first part of your reason for not swapping, but sadly I can’t help with the second part…
@dgran Amen – same for us out here in the hills of the SF Bay Area Peninsula. Up and over Skyline Drive a couple of times and the compact is de rigeur. Does not reduce the aspirations, the drive or the need to revisit Rule #V. 50/34 is defintiely the right gearing for me.
@Geraint
That’s a great offer, thanks. They’re tools I need to replace, I tend to pull the cranks off on a regular basis when I’m riding alot. I’ve also got a compact spider and rings as well as a compact FSA chainset that came with the bike that I’ve kept as a back up.
Where about in the UK are you? I did say a while ago that I’d organise a London cogal. Given today’s sad news it seems like that should be something we should be getting on with.
@Chris – disagree, sorry mate, if Rule #65 means disassembling the bottom bracket and shovelling in fresh grease every bloody week just so it doesn’t creak like a whores bed then said bottom bracket must be a crock of shit …I know my way around a bike: 4 sets of bearings @ 200 – 250km per week over two years would suggest I’m probably right. One day they’ll figure it out and BB30 will be awesome. For now I think your non-creaking BB30 is the exception rather tan the rule (no pun intended)
I am currently dealing with a fantastic BB30 creak. It sounds like the frame is snapping in half every time i hit 2 o’clock NDS. I’m hoping the shell is all knackered up, the 2014 frame has a nicer finish.
@brett
You misunderstood me – my “that makes two of us” referred to you and me both being happy about you having left Australia. I sit just to the right of Mussolini.
@il ciclista medio
I’m actually a little behind that – I was only 10 in 1976, but later I was a fan of Ed Kuepper in The Laughing Clowns and reversed into The Saints through that.
@Marcus
Well, in that case you deserve everything you get…
@Chris
You’re welcome. I got mine from qwertycycles.co.uk – great UK resource for Cannondale parts and tools if you’re not already aware of them.
I’m based in Chepstow, which is a fair step from London, but I think my current state of (un-)fitness might be more of a barrier to attending a cogal. Definitely agree with the ‘carpe diem’ sentiment in the light of that sad news though.
@Geraint That’s where I got mine from. Damn, I’d been trying to remember who it was and couldn’t find any traces of emails from them at all. Thanks. They’re a good bit cheaper than the German outfit Dr Cannondale.
The Chepstow Cogal has a nice ring to it but you’re right, it is a bit of a trek.
@Chris If there is a London Cogal organised I’ll be there from Surrey. Would be great to ride and raise a beer to @itburns.
@Mike_P
@Chis @Mike – I’d be up to raise a beer or a mid ride coffee if there is a Cogal in striking distance of Surrey.
@Teocalli What area of Surrey are you in?
@Mike_P
@Mike_P in at Hindhead south of Guildford close to being on top of the new A3 Tunnel.