Ran out of gears!

Ambermile

So. Got what is, to all intents, a self-built mountain bike really - LX crankset with XT everything else bar the HG rear cassette. Thing is that when I started doing 100 miles a week I was spending an embarassingly-large amount of time on the middle gear. Tonight though, I noticed that for most of 12 miles I was on the outside pair and still only getting to 20-23 mph if I was pushing things. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this has been so for a while now, the trip up the Stort and back last week was only maybe three hours (30 miles or so pretty much 80% of which is technically off-road).

Now... I am not sure what the tooth count is (I could go look if necessary) but I suppose I really need to get something a bit higher or else I am going to be spinning the cranks for not a lot of gain... but I want to keep the mountain bike! What are my options - get a bigger big sprocket at the front? If so, will it compromise the mech for the other two? Smaller/different cassette with higher gearing? Will that compromise the long cage mech?

Any insights/help/advice welcome!


Arthur

CheeseyJoe

What is your cadence at 22-23mph?

You should be hitting 110-120rpm before you've run out of gears.

Even if you've only got 44x11(with 700c wheel) as your highest gear you should be hitting at least 25mph (80rpm)

Ambermile

Not sure what the cadence is, cheapie computer :oops: I'd say between 100 and 120 though, yes - but 26"x2" tyres...


Arthur

aracer

I think you're rather overestimating your cadence - 23mph in 44x11 with those tyres is only 75rpm. Even if you've only got 44x12 (which is unlikely) then it's still only 81rpm. 100rpm in 44x11 is almost 31mph!

I reckon you simply need to learn to spin your legs a bit faster - unless you really do have strangely low gears. You'd think if asking for advice on gearing it would be worth finding out exactly what you have at the moment.

Ambermile

Well, maybe - but I was asking advice on putting bigger/smaller sprockets into the mech setup I currently have really rather than anything specifically gearing-wise.

Bugly

you may not find a larger chainring for the LX, depending ong the bolt circle. If the highest gear on the cassette is a 13 (unlikely most probably 12 tooth) you can get higher ratios by putting on a cassette which has 11 teeth. The advice above is good, you really have a low cadence (Leg speed) by the sound of things.

aracer

Ambermile wrote:

Well, maybe - but I was asking advice on putting bigger/smaller sprockets into the mech setup I currently have really rather than anything specifically gearing-wise.

We'd still need to know what you have currently to be able to offer any sensible advice.

thomasali

Pedal faster ! Was riding off road on 44x12 @ 31mph alongside my friend a little while back she has 44X11 and we could of gone faster if we span quicker! We get so many people coming in for 48t chainrings to go on their Carreras and Konas, we tell them to spin faster but they say they can't or they "don't like it"!

Ambermile

Well then, after checking I have 44 - 11 as the highest (lowest?) option. As for spinning faster then yes, it *is* an option but I'm not exactly a spring chicken these days and all that frenzied pedalling seems a bit too much - best left to the younger/fitter cyclists :oops: I would prefer to just push the pedals a bit harder to be honest!

I do have a Biopace chainset around here from the old yellow bike and note I can get 44T, 48T and 50T from SJS - if I tried these would the front mech cope?

Arthur 8)

aracer

If you really do want to get bigger gears, then the answer is that your front mech would probably cope - though you can't just stick a bigger large chainring on without changing the others to bigger ones also, as it won't cope with too large a gap between chainrings. Hence you'll lose the bottom gears you have now.

However your best solution is still to pedal a little faster - if you're currently doing 20-23mph then that's 65 to 75rpm, which is really quite a slow and inefficient pedalling rate. 90rpm is hardly frenzied pedalling (it's what I'd consider just a reasonable cruising rate), and would get you almost 28mph. Even just 80rpm would get you up to almost 25mph. I doubt it's actually your gear that's limiting you - I' be very surprised if you could actually go any faster with a bigger gear.

Ambermile

Thanks for the advice re: losing the other two gears, that's what I wanted to know - I cannot actually remember ever using the granny gear though. As for the 90rpm being "cruising rate", I am not trying to hit land speed records here, just attain and maintain a reasonable fitness level for a 48 year old! A cruising speed of 25mph for me is more than enough, if I tour I would only want to do 60-70 miles a day anyway.

Arthur

Bugly

Ambermile, we are the same age my natural cadance is between 90 to 100, Age is no barrier and being able to spin a gear, higher cadence gives better accelleration. . Still not all legs and lungs are the same.

Good luck

Ambermile

Hmm... maybe then I should give it a couple more weeks? As I said first, I have only recently hit this "no more gears" thing so if I live with running top gear for a while I may just sort-of "naturally" get used to a higher cadence.


But I want it *now* though!



Arthur

northpole

It would be useful to know what simple techniques are recommended to increase cadence - apart from the glaringly obvious retort of turn the pedals faster!! :roll:

Any suggestions on this would be appreciated. I certainly have a suspicion that because my usual route is fairly level, I probably use the gears to maintain what is probably a relatively low cadence. If I could get my Garmin computer to work then I might gain an insight into my current cadence!!

Peter

redddraggon

northpole wrote:

It would be useful to know what simple techniques are recommended to increase cadence - apart from the glaringly obvious retort of turn the pedals faster!! :roll:

A cadence meter on a computer I find is handy.....

If you see your cadence dropping below 70 (let's say), shift down a gear and maintain the same speed. Since I've started using a cadence meter my cadence has steadily gone up so that I'm now comfortable pedalling above 100rpm - it just takes a bit of getting used to.

Having watched numerous beginners (and tesco full susser riders) they all seem to have a very low cadence - I think it's largely because people think that if they push a big gear they'll go faster. When I started cycling I used to put it in the biggest gear as soon as I was on the flat - bearing in mind I was rubbish then and going slow I must have been pedalling at barely 40rpm.

However there is no magic cadence I'm comfortable anywhere from 60-100rpm - I tend to sit in a group using a higher gear/lower cadence (60-70) so that it's easier to react to any slight accelerations of riders in front without feeling the need to do any shifting.

Some people think cadence meters are useless - but I think they are quite handy for training. If you can only pedal at 60ish RPM you won't be able to go as fast as you could if you worked on the cadence.

Ambermile

aracer wrote:

...if you're currently doing 20-23mph then that's 65 to 75rpm, which is really quite a slow and inefficient pedalling rate. 90rpm is hardly frenzied pedalling (it's what I'd consider just a reasonable cruising rate), and would get you almost 28mph.

Well, thanks for that - this was borne out this evening when I had a thrash, and I reckon when I was doing maybe 90 rpm the speedo was on the 29 or so mark. I do have to say that it *felt* frenzied, but I could also appreciate that it would be a much more comfortable cadence to maintain even if the speed was a bit high. Later in the ride I just went up a couple of gears and pedalled a bit faster... can't say it felt any better but time will tell 8)

Arthur

aracer

northpole wrote:

It would be useful to know what simple techniques are recommended to increase cadence - apart from the glaringly obvious retort of turn the pedals faster!! :roll

Simply use lower gears than you normally would. If you're used to turning your legs over at 70rpm, then 90rpm will feel like you're spinning your legs off - and that's the feeling you want. It won't actually take long to get used to this, and you should end up not only going faster, but also with less wear on your knees.

Personally I never use a cadence meter - you don't actually need one provided you have a speedo and know what gear you're in, as you can work out in advance what speed is 90rpm for a given gear. I assume you have an 11-32 cassette, in which case here's the speed you'll be going at 90rpm for your big ring gears:
44x11 - 27.8mph
44x12 - 25.5mph
44x14 - 21.8mph
44x16 - 19.1mph
44x18 - 17.0mph
44x21 - 14.6mph
44x24 - 12.7mph
44x28 - 10.9mph
I tend to remember the numbers for the gears I use most, but you could just tape that list to your stem.

satanas

Simple technique to increase cadence = ride a fixed gear bike with an average gear (between ~64-72").

I am older than you are and pedal between 90-110rpm by preference, and for me <75rpm means I am climbing and have run out of low gears. I used to exceed 200rpm on one downhill on my old commute...

Ambermile

OK, I can increase the rpm by simply dropping a few gears... at least until I get used to things going round a whole lot faster!


Arthur