foxyrider wrote:52x13 is probably the most used gear on the road bike.
That’s a taller gear than Bradley Wiggins used for his hour record. That said, he only averaged 54.526 km/h for that. I suppose you’re moving a bit quicker?
foxyrider wrote:52x13 is probably the most used gear on the road bike.
foxyrider wrote:The quest for lower gears is IME, driven largely by some strange idea that cycling should be easy - clearly the marketing has worked but truly, you only get out what you put in.
The utility cyclist wrote:My 59cm carbon frame isn't uber light, in fact it's a fairly hefty 1085g but is sub UCI weight limit even with the cages and computer (because i bought lightweight stuff I like/wanted when building it up). I'm a not particularly svelte 98kg, have crohn's disease so sometimes any riding is just incredibly difficult and I can be cream crackered before I get 5 mins up the road but even for me I can get up a short 14% section with 10% in places with a 36-28, it's not easy by any stretch, even on a good day it's an absolute killer and I do have to get out the saddle and hurt myself. I've been meaning to put a 33T in place of the 36 because I don't want to go the route of a huge cassette.
mattsccm wrote:I'll play devils advocate here. Really low gears are not needed.
1. If you are cycling up hill at walking pace walking is more effective .
2. Unfit beginners who might go that slow are likely to lack the skills to balence at sub walking pace anyway.
3. Few people need to cycle up long drags with heavy weights. Commercial riders and tourists might. A small minority but proportionally over represented here I reckon.
4. A fairly fit human doesn't need low gears. My 1980 TT bike had a 13-17 block with a 42/52 chain set. As the wheels were way nicer than my day to day wheels these were used. Never pushed on 25% hills. OK I was 18 and racing fit but compared to that a 34 t chain ring with a 32 at the back is silly low.
5. Cyclists used to be fit not newly converted desk jockeys. Low gears were not needed.
6. Few hills need low gears to grind up. How many 30% do you know? Get out of the saddle and honk!
7. People didn't want everything easy and dumbed down to say they could do it.
8. Hills are either sort and steep or long and gentle. Either can be forced. At least in the UK.
9. Cycling is a physical activity, effort is part of it. Or by an ebike.
The OP could be either big and muscley in which case he could force a gear or big and unfit. Sorry but maybe the problem is that the body is wrong not the gears.
All perfectly valid and accurate points however unpalatable they may be.
As I said .... Devils advocate.
I bet most of those here are past their prime, like me, and this will colour our views of the world. Would you have said the same as a fit 20 year old I wonder?
Samuel D wrote:foxyrider wrote:52x13 is probably the most used gear on the road bike.
That’s a taller gear than Bradley Wiggins used for his hour record. That said, he only averaged 54.526 km/h for that. I suppose you’re moving a bit quicker?
foxyrider wrote: If cycling was meant to be easy we'd all be on Ebikes.
thelawnet wrote:The utility cyclist wrote:My 59cm carbon frame isn't uber light, in fact it's a fairly hefty 1085g but is sub UCI weight limit even with the cages and computer (because i bought lightweight stuff I like/wanted when building it up). I'm a not particularly svelte 98kg, have crohn's disease so sometimes any riding is just incredibly difficult and I can be cream crackered before I get 5 mins up the road but even for me I can get up a short 14% section with 10% in places with a 36-28, it's not easy by any stretch, even on a good day it's an absolute killer and I do have to get out the saddle and hurt myself. I've been meaning to put a 33T in place of the 36 because I don't want to go the route of a huge cassette.
I cycled up a 30km long hill last month, in Indonesia. But that was with 22/36 at my disposal (not sure if i used it?). TBH I'm not sure what gear I was in most of the time, but it didn't hurt me, and I can't ever remember thinking 'what I need here is to push a harder gear so I'm exhausted before I get to the top'
There's also about a 100 metre stretch of 20-30% 'wall' I go up sometimes, I think I use the 22/36 and why not? (I go up at about 4.5mph)
I'm sure my road bike technique is quite lacking (I don't stand up to climb), and I'm accustomed to MTB gearing so perhaps not used to the feeling of being forced to push hard for more than just 30 seconds or so to get up a short burst of hill. But I'm not sure I see that arguments that harder gears are better because people managed in the past with them are really the point. I'm sure I'd get used to my current gearing quite quickly, and I could survive with more masochistic still gearing - there's nowhere I'm saying 'this is completely impossible, I couldn't ride again for a week', it's more a case of 'why not easier gears', which I don't think has been answered in any reasonable way in the negative.
I cycled up Box Hill yesterday at leisurely pace (15kph in my case). Strava estimates my average power output at 183W. I believe I was using 34/25 mostly. At 90rpm 34/25 is 15kph. But then at a more 'pushy' cadence of 50rpm, my lowest gear 34/28 is 7.6kph, which is as slow as you'd ever want to go.
But maybe I never do that sort of cadence because well, I don't have any need to, so it's not something I've ever really worked on.
Again I'm sure I could get used to it, but why? (I'll probably be selling this bike within the next couple of weeks and have no other bikes with such gearing, so this is a question that exercises me, so to speak)