Did Bradley have a low enough gear today?

ForumNewbie

It was painful to see Bradley swaying and struggling to keep bike moving on steepest part of last climb today. It was about 25% gradient at that point but just wondering if he had a low enough gear on his bike, knowing that climb was coming up. Chris Sutton has tweeted that he was using a 38/32 lowest gear which is pretty low, but don't know what gear Bradley was in.

LeicesterLad

ForumNewbie wrote:

It was painful to see Bradley swaying and struggling to keep bike moving on steepest part of last climb today. It was about 25% gradient at that point but just wondering if he had a low enough gear on his bike, knowing that climb was coming up. Chris Sutton has tweeted that he was using a 38/32 lowest gear which is pretty low, but don't know what gear Bradley was in.

I would like to say he should have done, after all this is a GT, and the teams should have done their research and covered the maths, and when you look at a map and see 23% you really should be looking at you're bike set up...

raymondo60

It was also really frustrating watching the Eurosport coverage, as they lost the camera following the Wiggins/Froome group right at the crucial moment. It was chaos on that mountain today! Asfor Wiggo, I think he just reached his limit on the extreme gradients, though you may well have a point about the gearing. I'd be suprised if Dave Brailsford and the team weren't aware of the stage details though.........

lfcquin

ProCyclingLive repored on Twitter that Cobo was riding 36x32 and Wiggins was on 38x32, most of the other favourites were on 36x28, incuding Froome. I haven't seen the stage, but that sounds like Wiggins took a bit of a gamble that didn't pay off.

lfcquin

Raymondo60 wrote:

It was also really frustrating watching the Eurosport coverage, as they lost the camera following the Wiggins/Froome group right at the crucial moment.

Reports from Twitter said that the motorbike following the Wiggins group fell over on the steep bit of the climb, so it wasn't just Eurosport who lost coverage. All TV coverage of the Wiggins group was lost.

cougie

Yeah you can see the moto fall over with the Brad group.

He's a pro cyclist - he knows to use his bottom gear when necessary.
It did look like he needed a lower one but maybe he'd banked on feeling stronger.

oldwelshman

Nothing wrong with gear selection it is more to do with how he was feeling.
Every one of these riders could get up this climb on a 39 x 23 but that is not to say they can doit in a race when flat out. Wiggins had been figthing to stay with group of four for a while and was obviously in the red at the point he wobbled. He could have had a lower gear and would not have really helped as he was on limit and blew. You cannot fault him for his effort to stay in there but I do not think it had anything to do with the gear selection.
J Rod also blew shorthly before this and other riders also. Dont think they were all on the wrong gears

piquet

nice spoiler thread - well done!

rick_chasey

Gears are overrated.

I ride around singlespeed and up a point, and it's pretty steep point, I don't notice any difference between my speed.

All those geared people I've wasted uphill can testify

But more seriously, I doubt Wiggin's gear ratio made any noticable difference.

Anonymous

Piquet wrote:

nice spoiler thread - well done!

How long should people not talk about it? The race finished 7 hours ago and the highlights finished over 2 hours ago.
If you're that late watching it and still don't want to know the result - why come onto a cycling forum?

dmjb3

Choppered wrote:

Piquet wrote:

nice spoiler thread - well done!

How long should people not talk about it? The race finished 7 hours ago and the highlights finished over 2 hours ago.
If you're that late watching it and still don't want to know the result - why come onto a cycling forum?

No. No one is saying don't talk about it, just have some respect for other people and not give the game away in the title!

Some of us work late, some of us have wives and families that want to watch something else until 10pm or so. Nothing wrong with reading a few bike forums whilst they do. Today I watched the highlights show more or less live, but some days I don't. Lots of other people in this same situation, beyond the OP and I, so giving a neutral thread title 'gear choices on angrilu' would have been the decent thing to do.

phil s

Wiggins needs to learn to get out of the saddle a bit more IMO

oldwelshman

Am I missing something here about the thread title? How does it say who won the stage ?
At the end of the day it is easy to stay away from the pro race forum until you watch it surely, if your that depserate not to know, or is it so addictive that you have to log in to the pro race sction.
I suppose next some will complain in a weeks time that they only just returned from hiolidays and the title spoilt the surprise for them?

oldwelshman

phil s wrote:

Wiggins needs to learn to get out of the saddle a bit more IMO

Maybe he is worried it will break his collarbone if he stands and pulls on bar too much
It is just his style, he prefers higher cadence and lower gears done him ok up to know though.
Interesteing on number of comments on things once he lost a bit of time to two riders (even though he beat all the others up a mionster climb) like worng gears, should stand on pedals, sky should have backed Froome, he cant climb steep ckimbs, wrong tactics. I dont think it was that bad a ride was it ?
Think there are many coaches in this forum I think Wiggo has a pretty good idea what to do and what he can achieve, I bet he reads these forums for a laugh

wreckedmyklein

phil s wrote:

Wiggins needs to learn to get out of the saddle a bit more IMO

I think if he hadnt broken his collar bone only a few weeks ago, he might have got out of the saddle more.

thamacdaddy

Spoiler whine again. Firmly in the "don't come to a bike site covering race results, especially the racing section if you don't want to know.

Gear selection was different but COBO just had that bit extra up the climb, which was one of the most extreme I have seen.

Tom Butcher

He looked a little over geared compared to Cobo but not compared to most - whether he'd have gone better with a lower gear who knows - it wasn't a bad ride by any means more a cracking ride by Cobo. If only he'd managed to hang with Froome it would now be unbelievably tight at the top of the GC.

moray_gub

dmjb3 wrote:

Choppered wrote:

Piquet wrote:

nice spoiler thread - well done!

How long should people not talk about it? The race finished 7 hours ago and the highlights finished over 2 hours ago.
If you're that late watching it and still don't want to know the result - why come onto a cycling forum?

No. No one is saying don't talk about it, just have some respect for other people and not give the game away in the title!

Some of us work late, some of us have wives and families that want to watch something else until 10pm or so. Nothing wrong with reading a few bike forums whilst they do. Today I watched the highlights show more or less live, but some days I don't. Lots of other people in this same situation, beyond the OP and I, so giving a neutral thread title 'gear choices on angrilu' would have been the decent thing to do.

This comes up time and time again..........its really quite simple if you don't want to know the result of a race then dont come onto a cycling forum until you have watched it...........its not rocket science. If you do come on and find out the result then you have nobody to blame but yourself . As for the original title it was about bradley wiggins'gear choice so its perfectly acceptable to put that in the title.

Pokerface

Yeah - 2 hours after the highlights have been shown is past the watershed of when you can discuss the day's racing without a spoiler title in the thread. If you haven't seen it by then - tough. Give up the family/work life and start following cycling seriously.

Rule74Please

Face it he can't CLIMB.

TT up a mountain yes but when it gets steep he gets found out.

For one not surprised and watched waiting for him to crack as predicted

No_Ta_Doctor

Rule74Please wrote:

Face it he can't CLIMB.

TT up a mountain yes but when it gets steep he gets found out.

For one not surprised and watched waiting for him to crack as predicted

Right. When it gets to one of the two most murderous mountains in cycling, at its very steepest part (over 20%) he cracks. Just like almost everyone else then, including riders he dropped who are know to be excellent climbers.....

iainf72

Rule74Please wrote:

Face it he can't CLIMB.

TT up a mountain yes but when it gets steep he gets found out.

For one not surprised and watched waiting for him to crack as predicted

Can Nibali climb? Or J-Rod? Can he climb?

Because unless my eyes decieved me, they cracked a lot more than Wiggins.

Ron Stuart

thamacdaddy wrote:

Spoiler whine again. Firmly in the "don't come to a bike site covering race results, especially the racing section if you don't want to know.

Gear selection was different but COBO just had that bit extra up the climb, which was one of the most extreme I have seen.

He and drug head Piepoli had a that bit extra on a climb in another Tour :shock: , after the snake Ricco was busted the whole team was withdrawn from the race.

The rumours and innuendo now surround Ricco's team, Saunier Duval, whose climbers, Leonardo Piepoli and Juan José Cobo, placed first and second at the summit finish of Hautacam on Monday. Asked last night if he suspected systematic doping, the Tour director, Christian Prudhomme, said: "I was pretty disturbed when I saw the superiority of two riders from the same team on the stage to Hautacam. Like the rest of you were, I'm sure." :roll:

FJS

lfcquin wrote:

ProCyclingLive repored on Twitter that Cobo was riding 36x32 and Wiggins was on 38x32, most of the other favourites were on 36x28, incuding Froome.

So why is this thread about Wiggins being overgeared? He still ha d a lighter gear than all the other favorites. Sporza was reporting Cobo had the lightest gear of the whole peloton, which these ProCycling numbers seem to confirm, and that might be a lesson for next time, but it's not just about Wiggins

pedro118118

I think it is very unfair to criticise Wiggo - the climb up the Angliru is insane - a circus act. Does a climb like that have any place in a GT? That's another debate, but Wiggo and Froome had the beating of all the major GC riders, including J-Rod, who everyone thought would be the main to beat. I don't think gearing was the defining factor here.

inkyfingers

Gearing is also a very personal thing, I don't think any of us are qualified to critiscise pro riders (Got The Tee Shirt excepted). Some guys like to push a big gear up the climbs, even if they might look uncomfortable whereas others prefer to spin it up the climbs. I think having good legs and lungs was more important yesterday.

If anyone had said 3 years ago that Wiggins would finish 5th on the Angliru I would have called the men in white coats. It was an incredible ride, Cobo just rode better.

timturpinfleck

Rule74Please wrote:

Face it he can't CLIMB.

TT up a mountain yes but when it gets steep he gets found out.

For one not surprised and watched waiting for him to crack as predicted

He was beaten on a ridiculous climb by Mountain climbers and finished ahead of most of the other GC riders

14 seconds ahead of Rodriguez, Monfort, Mollema
20 seconds ahead of Dan Martin
39 seconds ahead of Nieve
56 seconds ahead of Van Den Broeck
1 min 16 seconds ahead of Nibali
1 min 22 ahead of Fuglsang

Yes he did crack but so did nearly everyone else.

No_Ta_Doctor

If the gearings are correct then I make it about 5.6% more power per crank turn from Wiggins on Cobo, and about 14% more for those in 36/28. Not a huge amount in it really.

symo

I think he showed today that he is in the elite of climbers, so he can TT really well, climb really well (barring a collarbone stopping him hopping out the saddle more).

Race is far from over. Lots of flat stages for those noted flatland riders at Geox to crash in.

thegibdog

I think Moto 2 needed lower gearing too!

jibberjim

FJS wrote:

lfcquin wrote:

ProCyclingLive repored on Twitter that Cobo was riding 36x32 and Wiggins was on 38x32, most of the other favourites were on 36x28, incuding Froome.

So why is this thread about Wiggins being overgeared? He still ha d a lighter gear than all the other favorites. Sporza was reporting Cobo had the lightest gear of the whole peloton, which these ProCycling numbers seem to confirm, and that might be a lesson for next time, but it's not just about Wiggins

One thing to factor in is that Wiggins normally rides at a higher cadence than the other favourites though - so gearing compared to his normal cadence choice suggests he wasn't actually riding a lighter gear than most in terms of actual use.

Wiggins also doesn't use round rings, O.Symetric don't have anything smaller than a 38 (I think it's impossible to get the shape and have anything less) but I suspect that the shape doesn't work on the very steep climbs the same.