Gearing for sportives

procrastinate

Hi All,

I was hoping to get some advice on gearing for sportives. I have done a couple this year (Rutland and Polkadot (thankfully only the 54-mile version given the weather!)), which has been enough to convince me I need to change my gearing.

After cramping up on the Rutland sportive in the steep hills towards the end, I changed my gearing from 39x23 to 39x27. This got me around polkadot but I struggled on some of the steeper hills and was envious to see others spin up the hills in a lower gearing.

I could either go for a compact to give me 34x27 or a triple to give me 30x27. Others have said that the former should be enough to get me up most hills but with potential aspirations for l'etape and even for peak district tours that go up winnat's pass (25%) I'm not convinced.

According to the gearing charts going from 39x23 to 39x27 reduced my effective wheel size from 45" to 38", changing to a compact only gives me another 5" to 33". I can;'t see this being enough to get me up a 25% gradient climb. Am I just a whimp or am I missing something, I can't see why the effects would be anything but linear but maybe a 5" reduction has a bigger impact the lower you get.

Just want to make sure I'm not going to splash out on a compact only to have to change again! Any advice appreciated - apologies if this subject has come up a thousand times before!

markos1963

I run a compact and in general its ok(12/25 on rear) but I think that if I was going to do a long Alpine climb I would prefer a triple.I say that not for the lower gearing but for the smoother jumps between the chainrings. You can fit a 36 inner on a compact but then you are defeating the object of fitting it in the first place.

VilanovaRider

I run a triple on my newest bike and have a compact on an older training bike. I have to say that if I could go back in time I'd swap the triple for a compact. Why?

Well, looking at gear inches and all that sort of thing the triple just gets me 1 extra gear over my compact (34/50 and 11/27) and it's a lot of extra metal to carry around. Oh, and I've never once used this extra gear.

However, if it's the extra gear that gets you out of trouble when you're knackered, 90 miles in and facing 3 miles at 25% .... if you can get round polkadot on 39 x 27 though this probably isn't going to be a problem.

snaffledog

I currently run a 34x27 Compact which is 34" gear, and I previously ran a 39x26 40" gear.
On the 39x26 I could just make it up the Winnats Pass/Honister Pass climbs, but it was an almighty struggle, and the legs were completely shot afterwards.
It might not seem a big difference between 34" and 40" , but muscle fatigue sets in more quickly if you trying to turn a bigger gear, that means on a long hilly sportive having a compact is definitely beneficial.
I did the full 100 route of the Spud yesterday (in the mental conditions!) , and glad I had 34x27 at my disposal
I didnt do full sportives on the 39x26, I put that down to not thinking I was fit enough, but then got new bike with compact last July and have coincidentally started doing full-length sportives.
For training purposes you can still over-gear if you are trying to build strength, I try and stick to 34x24 as bottom gear for training , then on the day of the sportive use all the gears as needed.
HTH

procrastinate

Thanks all for the advice and well done 'dog for getting round on Sunday! I think I'll plump for a compact and see how far that takes me (hopefully also means I don't have any worries about changing any other components)

RR75

Call me a total pussy but I have a triple AND massive cassette. Gives me 32/30. I've only used the full extent a couple of times, but I like knowing it's there.

Well worth the extra 100g, until your legs are so strong you can be confident without it.