Double - Lowest gear - Hills - Sportive

Mettan

Bit of a general question regards Sportives/Hills, but am trying to assess what a Double with a lowest gear of 39/28 would be like on a Sportive of 75 miles with a range of varied "climbs", for a leisure rider who has only ever riden up to 50-60 miles appx at a time (on a heavier Hybrid) and typically does 10-12 mile rides throughout the week? - could a leisure rider with those figures cope with a 39/28 on a Sportive? Obviously there's lot's of factors involved but just as a general rough idea.

Thanks

OllyBianchi

I'm not superfit but have ridden nearly 2000 miles this year - inluding the Norwich 100 miles and the London-Canterbury. I did all this with a bottom gear of 34-25 and I have just changed my cassette to get a bottom gear of 34-29 for some of the steep hills in North Wales.

So I'd suggest look at a compact on the front. It's always useful to have a bail out gear which will enable you to get to the finish despite cramp, rain, cold, lack of food etc. I'm not sure your current setup will give you that.

However it's all down to individual style too - I tend to prefer to spin a very small gear and stay seated rather than push round a bigger gear. You may be a more muscular rider and could get away with bigger gears.

oldwelshman

This will depend on several factors.
First of all it depends on you and your physique and riding style.
If your light and a good climber you will probably be ok.
If not you will struggle on harder sportives.
It also depends on your effort put into ride.
I have ridden some routes easily on steady ride then struggled goong hard in a sportive on a long steep climb.
In races I find it easier as you tend to ride in larger groups sharing work whereas in a sportive long stretches can be done alone sapping energy. This happend to me on two very very wet and lonely sportives last year
It will also depend on the sportive.
Many you will get away with on 39 x 28. I only have a 39 x 27 lowest and recently forgot to fit it for autumn epic and struggled like hell on one climb which was very steep as I only had 39 x 23. I was zig zagging
If I get to do the Dave Lloyd challenge I am going to use a compact not to stress myself befoe I do th eMarmotte a week later and Pinarello fondo the week after

Mettan

Thanks for the info guys - Just looking at Compacts aswell as doubles and triples the Giant SCR 4 (2007) looks ok as a competent budget Compact bike - it's got 36/26 as it's lowest gear, which is a tad better than the 39/28 - also it might be able to take a bigger cassette hence lower gearing again?

With longer Sportives I'm just a bit bothered with excessive knee strain on hills towards the mid-end so am just keeping a firm eye on lower gearing.

Looking forward to trying a Sportive though, early in 2008 - haven't ridden "semi-competitively" before, and would be nice to take part in something on a more informal/leisure basis as opposed to full-on Club riding.

pneumatic

You can always put a smaller chainring on if you find yourself running out of spinning options.

My Specialized Roubaix came with a compact 50-36, 12-27, which was fine for all the UK riding over the summer (including the Etape Caledonia, which had a beast of a hilly finish), but I was so worried about my trip to the Ventoux that I bought a 34t. It was a doddle to fit, no adjustment required to the front changer and I am very glad I had it.

The advice I got was that you couldn't really go lower than 34x27 with my gearset, but that was plenty in the end.

My other bike, which is much heavier, has a touring (i.e. ATB) triple that gives me a lowest gear of 26x34 but, even on the Galibier, I didn't use anything that low.

larmurf

Mettan wrote:

Bit of a general question regards Sportives/Hills, but am trying to assess what a Double with a lowest gear of 39/28 would be like on a Sportive of 75 miles with a range of varied "climbs", for a leisure rider who has only ever riden up to 50-60 miles appx at a time (on a heavier Hybrid) and typically does 10-12 mile rides throughout the week? - could a leisure rider with those figures cope with a 39/28 on a Sportive? Obviously there's lot's of factors involved but just as a general rough idea.

Thanks

hi
I mostly cycle on my own and have one pretty severe climbing route which I do about
once a week when I start to get fit. I usually climb it with the middle section of my triple
39/26. I strive to knock seconds of the hardest parts each time that I tackle it. Recently
I suffered a few setbacks and decided to a change of tack. I went out with my radio and
headphones and using the same combination of gears climbed as slowly as I could
was very surprised how much I enjoyed it. Except for the never-ending deabte on
the radio about who's right and who's wrong in Northern Ireland

larmurf

Mettan wrote:

Bit of a general question regards Sportives/Hills, but am trying to assess what a Double with a lowest gear of 39/28 would be like on a Sportive of 75 miles with a range of varied "climbs", for a leisure rider who has only ever riden up to 50-60 miles appx at a time (on a heavier Hybrid) and typically does 10-12 mile rides throughout the week? - could a leisure rider with those figures cope with a 39/28 on a Sportive? Obviously there's lot's of factors involved but just as a general rough idea.

Thanks

hi
I mostly cycle on my own and have one pretty severe climbing route which I do about
once a week when I start to get fit. I usually climb it with the middle section of my triple
39/26. I strive to knock seconds of the hardest parts each time that I tackle it. Recently
I suffered a few setbacks and decided to a change of tack. I went out with my radio and
headphones and using the same combination of gears climbed as slowly as I could
was very surprised how much I enjoyed it. Except for the never-ending deabte on
the radio about who's right and who's wrong in Northern Ireland

ram038

how do you find out the gear ratio? I have a Lemond Reno double.

feel

ram038 wrote:

how do you find out the gear ratio? I have a Lemond Reno double.

Is it the number of teeth on your chain wheel divided by the number of teeth on your rear cassette?
I tried to to get a lemond reno earlier this year but there wer none available so ended up with a lemond tourmalet triple.

John.T

Try the gear calculator here.
http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/