Lower gears - *actually* make you faster??

JonEdwards

Not sure if this is a "buying advice" thread or not, but it beats talking about wheels. Again.

When i built my bike some years ago, I was living in London. Ended up with 53/39 & 12-25. I've now moved to Sheffield and do a lot of riding in the Peak. Lots of hills.

Now generally I'm still pretty happy with the gearing. I'm a skinny bugger (64kg) and quite happy climbing out the saddle. 1 in 4s are no real problem and it's only Winnats that I really struggle with. However I completely die when it comes to long steady climbs with a decent headwind.

I need to replace cranks/chain/cassette, so I'm going to go compact (smaller cogs = lighter!), but that obviously leaves me with cassette choice. 50/34 and an 11/23 would give me a fractionally lower bottom, but should I be looking to go lower still, so i can spin up more stuff rather than grind. My overall feeling is that road riding shouldn't be easy, and that all lower gears do is give you more bottle out room, and won't actually make me faster when it comes to my bete-noir of headwinds. However if this is not the case and i'll suddenly be able to stay sat down and rip up stuff faster, then it makes sense to go lower.

There's much talk of "efficiency" when it comes to gear choice (which i understand when it comes to enormous distances), but very little info about whether "efficient" = easy, fast, or both together...

I ride mostly for pleasure, but there's also a certain amount of losely based training for MTB events involved. Rides vary from quick lunchtime hour blasts to 80+ mile efforts. Maybe a couple of centuries/year too.

Thoughts?

iron-clover

From my *limited* experience I'd say they do.
You are obviously a very strong climber to be able to ride up Winnat's with a standard, and I'll freely admit that I'm not that strong!

However, I have spent most of my cycling on a compact, and had it swapped for a standard for about a month whilst I was swapping over BB types. During this time I found I was able to put out faster times on the (flat) time trials, and didn't have any problems I can remember when climbing 'standard' hills. However, when I hit a proper climb with 20%, I was left desperately trying to keep the cranks moving even whilst out of the saddle, and was moving far more slowly than normal.
I was also doing lots of hill reps on climbs that touched 10%, and although I could keep the bike moving OK I couldn't spin the legs as fast as I should.
Once my shiny new compact chainset arrived, my times for those hills did increase by a noticeable amount as I was able to keep turning the legs over smoothly and at an efficient cadence.

I also found my lower gears to be brilliant during a particular race with a significant ramp to the finish that we would pass each lap, as they allowed me to accelerate through with ease when someone up front inevitably suffers or a pothole causes chaos while everyone else struggled with their big ring.
The only downside I have is that you can't push the same top end speed with a compact, but then I normally only 'spin out' above 40mph with 12t on the back- and you can go to 11t to extend it. But I'll be honest I only think of one single time where I wanted a bigger gear out of over 3 years!

So in short, yes, I believe that the compacts do let you go faster up hills, esp. longer ones where efficiency is key, but a little slower on pan flat terrain where you can keep a nice cadence at higher speed if you have the power for it.


EDIT: I personally use a 12-25t cassette for normal riding, and I've been up Wrynose with difficulty (not low enough for the steepest bit of Hardknott though- the front wheel wouldn't stay down!). I'd run with at least 25t on the back for if you need it at least, and with the hills up there I'd be inclined to go for 30/32 depending on how many speeds you have to play with to keep the ratios nicely spaced.

desweller

You don't make constant power across the range of cadence. There is also a fatigue element to take into account. You select your gears that will allow you to make the most acceptable compromise between power, cadence and fatigue. This will obviously depend on the type of ride you're doing, so a short flat out sprint will allow to to run taller gears as you will be riding at a higher power output at the expense of sustainability (and probably efficiency), whereas during a long all-day ride you might select gears that would maximise efficiency and sustainability but where you wouldn't be able to fully exploit your maximum power if the need arose.

If your standard double doesn't allow you to make the best compromise during ascents then perhaps a different selection of gears would make you faster.

arlowood

Why don't you just keep your standard chainset and try an 11-28 or 12-30 cassette.

You can get a 105 11-28 for around £23 and the Tiagra 12-30 is even cheaper. At that price you could probably afford to buy both and try them out. The advantage of the 11-28 is that it will give you most of the ratios that you already have on your 12-25 but with the extra 28 cog as a bale out. The 12-30 has a few more jumps to get the spread of gears.

As far as climbing efficiency goes the received wisdom seems to be that for short sharp inclines then you are probably faster tackling them out of the saddle. On longer inclines you waste more energy if you're out of the saddle and the advice tends to suggest that you should stay seated and get into a comfortable cadence to get the best efficiency.

But I'm sure it's a bit of horses for courses.

JonEdwards

You are obviously a very strong climber to be able to ride up Winnat's with a standard

That may be overstating the case. It's more of a "calm day without much traffic so I can zigzag loads, get to the top and try and avoid chucking my ring up" scenario. An annual feat to prove I can rather than something to be enjoyed...

You select your gears that will allow you to make the most acceptable compromise between power, cadence and fatigue

Indeed. But once you're properly knackered you'll be in bottom gear anyway, you just have to grin and bear it. To my thinking, all a lower bottom gear means is that it'll be slower and the pain will go on for longer...
That and you don't get strong by spinning ickle gears.

You can get a 105 11-28 for around £23 and the Tiagra 12-30 is even cheaper

a) I'm on Campag, so there's the Campagnolo tax to deal with.
b) I'm a gear whore/weight weenie, so the idea of a cheap 'n' nasty cassette is anathema :roll:
c) Everything is currently so knackered that I can't just change the cassette. Eveyrthing else needs to be done too, as the chain just won't work on a new cassette. I'd rather buy everything once, right.

I'm leaning towards an 11-25, as that gives me a bit more top (50/11 is a bit higher than 53/12) and it gives what, 2 gears down from 39/25? Then the challenge is not to use them!

desweller

JonEdwards wrote:

You select your gears that will allow you to make the most acceptable compromise between power, cadence and fatigue

Indeed. But once you're properly knackered you'll be in bottom gear anyway, you just have to grin and bear it. To my thinking, all a lower bottom gear means is that it'll be slower and the pain will go on for longer...
That and you don't get strong by spinning ickle gears.

Ah. There's a macho element to this, is there?

If the terrain is such that you're not able to ascend climbs on your existing gearing without taking a lot out of yourself at an ultra-low cadence, then you've got your answer; you need shorter gears.

The bike's a tool. Configure it to give you the best result. Anything else is just fooling yourself. If you want to demonstrate how tough you are, ride a 90-inch fixed gear, or even better run the course with a backpack full of rocks instead.

Serious Cat

Jon its riding a bike and not a who has the biggest balls competition. I think you are over complicating things by an alarming degree, just my 2 cents and impression you are giving out.

dennisn

"actually" not. Sorry, couldn't resist.

napoleond

I'm better grinding away. If I go at it at a fast effort I'm done too quickly.

Hang on. Are we talking about gears or the hot lovin'?

Whatever. Same for both.

chippyk

If a Veloce cassette is too much, 'campagnolo tax' my arse btw, Miche do campag compatible cassettes and the're pretty cheap.

neeb

You'll go up hills a bit faster if you can spin as well as grind, providing you don't let it make you lazy. Big gearing forces you to push hard on steep slopes, so if you have easier gears you need to force yourself. But providing you can do that you will have an advantage by having the smaller gears available.

Switching from a 53/39 & 12-25 to 50/34 & 11-23 will effectively give you one lower gear, which you will definitely notice. With an 11-25 you will have two more lower gears, which will make a world of difference.

If I was you I'd be tempted to go for the 50/34 and 11-25, and then if you find that you don't need the lowest gear swap to a 36T inner ring, which will give you about the same range as 50/34 + 11-23 except with closer spaced ratios between the rings.

slowbike

I went from a 39/26 (8 speed) to 34/28(10 speed) - and IMHO having the lower gears made me slower - because I'd been used to grinding up hills rather than spinning, my legs wouldn't spin up any reasonable length hill ...
I swapped cranks and cassette around to give me a low end of 39/27 (10 speed) and that's comfortable for any climb around here.
I have just bought another compact crankset (having given my previous one to my wife) to use on a hilly sportive we're doing together - I wouldn't have worried if it was just me, but she is a bit slower and having the lower gears will help me be a bit more comfortable at her pace.
I then have the option of different gearings without too much hassle.

neeb

If lower gears are making you slower you just need to set targets (average power, time over a particular climb or whatever) and don't allow yourself to fall below them. That way you will find whatever rhythm is most efficient. You may still grind the bigger gears quite a bit, but you will probably alternate between grinding and spinning.

slowbike

neeb wrote:

If lower gears are making you slower you just need to set targets (average power, time over a particular climb or whatever) and don't allow yourself to fall below them. That way you will find whatever rhythm is most efficient. You may still grind the bigger gears quite a bit, but you will probably alternate between grinding and spinning.

That's the theory ...

my theory is that if there is a bailout gear then it's quite likely that I'll take it - so if I don't have it then I really do just have to MTFU to get up.

I think there's a bit more to climbing that just putting on a low gear and spin up - you can't suddenly go from a masher to a spinner - it's something you have to train into to doing.

napoleond

I have no problems spinning, I ride the track, yet still prefer to mash up the hills.

slowbike

NapoleonD wrote:

I have no problems spinning, I ride the track, yet still prefer to mash up the hills.

I think it also depends on the gradient of the hills ...

I've only been on the track once - but basically it's flat, although you can use a bit of speed to take you up the banking and take a bit of relief coming down again - riding road on the "flat" is similar - it's never totally "flat" and you can often get a bit of relief without dropping speed to much.
Hills on the other hand, are hills ... you stop pedalling and you slow down dramatically - so you must keep the power up otherwise you're going to have to accelerate quite hard to get back up to speed. So once you take a bit of "relief" you're more likely to end up mashing.

markhewitt1978

Isn't the basic theory that you have an optimal cadence and you should stay within that, if you're falling below that cadence on climbs you either pedal faster or you change down.

neeb

There's a big difference between short climbs and long climbs of course. On a long climb of 40mins or an hour (not a UK thing admittedly) the trick is to get the effort level just right - if you start out too strong you will be crawling by the time you get to the top and your time will be slower overall (or you might just explode completely). That's where it helps to be able to alternate between spinning and getting out of the saddle.

slowbike

markhewitt1978 wrote:

Isn't the basic theory that you have an optimal cadence and you should stay within that, if you're falling below that cadence on climbs you either pedal faster or you change down.

If true I struggle to understand that - I'd think it's a bit more complex - cadence / power combo is more likely - and over a period rather than instant.
But once you go over your max sustainable power level then you're just going to have to slow down - lower gears won't necessarily enable you to go any quicker unless you're struggling to turn the cranks over - then a higher cadence will help lessen the impact of the dead spots.

neeb

markhewitt1978 wrote:

Isn't the basic theory that you have an optimal cadence and you should stay within that, if you're falling below that cadence on climbs you either pedal faster or you change down.

I think optimal cadence might be a little different on a steep climb, although I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe something to do with the reduced momentum - gravity is slowing you down almost as quickly as your pedaling is speeding you up. Certainly climbing out of the saddle and using body weight to help push the pedals down seems to be an efficient strategy on climbs, at least for some riders in some situations, whereas you'd never see a successful time trialist on the flat spending half of the time out of the saddle

slowbike

TT won't out of the saddle for long as it's aerodynamically bad ... which doesn't matter on the hills where your speed is significantly affected. I've found that (unless it's windy) much below 15mph there isn't a lot of advantage in slipstreaming - other than you've got a wheel to follow....

Plus I think you're right - gravity will try and pull you down so you end up accelerating/decelerating the whole time - which is probably why a higher cadence is slightly more efficient as the time between power strokes is minimised.

Perhaps ppl try and push themselves as fast as they can up a hill - well, most of the time - whereas on the flat they're happier to "cruise". I've ridden a cat2 at an alarmingly slow rate and could've ridden it for hours (actually, it did take hours) - but going at my pace (as I did toward the end) I wouldn't have been able to sustain it for anywhere near as long. The first bit I was riding easily albeit with a really low cadence (~20-30rpm) and the last bit I pushed up to ~50rpm but at double the speed and above my sustainable power output - I don't think turning the pedals any faster would've made me quicker up that bit, but had I done the whole lot at my pace then being able to churn out 60-70rpm at a suitable low speed could've made the difference.

me-109

I'd say go for the 11-25. On the basis that:

your speed is a product of effort and gearing, cadence is a variable within a range where you are comfortable, gearing is selected to maintain your cadence within that range, and cadence and gearing are not only inter-related but also perform the output and monitoring function (the effort).

So, having lower gearing (that does not have to be used) will allow you to maintain speed once your cadence drops below your 'window'. Whilst your effort feedback is that the output is acceptable, you will not use the lower gearing. Once you feel it is too slow/hard you use the lower gear, maintain the cadence and at some point your lactic acid production is lower than if you maintained the higher gear, combined with less anaerobic work for the muscles, so you ultimately go faster over the distance.

The nay-sayers claim that you go soft, don't put the effort in and ultimately end up slower. That's because you settle into the gear, adopt the lower cadence resulting in a lower overall output.

Isn't that the point of all these HRMs, cadence sensors or power meters (for the push/rich/clever and dedicated)? Or even, good old 'feel'?

I went from a SRAM 26 bottom gear to a Shimano 25 and could have wished for that extra tooth on a few climbs. Not a deciding factor and it didn't stop me getting up them, but noticeable. A long day in the hills was punishing so for a hilly sportive in September I swapped to a 28. No slower up the climbs that I had been on, I've since recorded my fastest times with the 28. After a winter on that gearing I've built up the summer bike with a 28 as well. I wouldn't suggest going so low yourself, but I am a supporter of the 'lower is not slower' camp. You may just need to adapt a little and that may be in cadence or style, or you may just find that you are happy in your style and the lower gearing selection complements it.

slowbike

Me-109 wrote:

The nay-sayers claim that you go soft, don't put the effort in and ultimately end up slower. That's because you settle into the gear, adopt the lower cadence resulting in a lower overall output.

that's the problem isn't it - it's easy to flip down a gear and then your pedalling slows down again till you're crawling - unless you've got the balls to tell your legs to MTFU ... so it does partly depend on the type of person you are ...
I found flipping down to significantly lower gear did slow me down - because I'm lazy when it comes to going up hill .... having ridden with mostly a harder gear through the winter (triple 30/39/50 with a 25-11 - try to stay in the middle ring up hills) I now find it mentally & physically easier to keep the cadence up on the same hills on a 39/27 or 39/26 - I believe part of that will be the warmer (?!) weather and corresponding less clothing - part of it is my legs have been trained into putting out a certain power - and reducing the gearing means less torque so it feels easier ... not that I think there's much in it overall ....

dennisn

Me-109 wrote:

I'd say go for the 11-25.

IMHO an 11 tooth cog is useless. You'll never use it and it will be in NEW condition years after the rest of the cassette is a piece of worn out metal. At least a 12 tooth MIGHT get a bit more usage and it has the advantage of allowing the rest of the gears to be a bit more closely spaced.
Now, I'm sure that in the next few hours this post will be deluged with riders claiming to push a 50 or 52 - 11 gear with ease(and uphill). This is to be expected. :roll:

Trust me on this one. Skip the 11 and get a 12.

markhewitt1978

Also is it not supposed to be that, in theory, your power output should stay constant but your speed varies? Of course most people put in a lot of effort in climbs, and cruise the descents and flats - I know I do!

me-109

dennisn wrote:

IMHO an 11 tooth cog is useless. You'll never use it and it will be in NEW condition years after the rest of the cassette is a piece of worn out metal. At least a 12 tooth MIGHT get a bit more usage and it has the advantage of allowing the rest of the gears to be a bit more closely spaced.

This is just as personal as those who have the bail out gear and rarely use it - gear selection is a compromise based on a whole load of stuff. If the OP goes 12-25 then it would be the equivalent of limiting his current gearing to second top - riding in the 13. That may be too much of a compromise. Also, say the OP is happy in 39x15, compact equivalent is 34x13. Using a 12-up block would be a significant cross-chaining or mean using the alternative 50x19. Depending on the terrain that may require a lot of front shifting to get the right ratios to be comfortable as the next drop to 50x21 may be too low and result in the slowing effect that some mention in relation to climbing (it's easier to pedal at the rate that is comfortable, which results in less speed). Just because the 11 is not used much does not make it useless.

markhewitt1978

dennisn wrote:

Me-109 wrote:

I'd say go for the 11-25.

IMHO an 11 tooth cog is useless. You'll never use it and it will be in NEW condition years after the rest of the cassette is a piece of worn out metal. At least a 12 tooth MIGHT get a bit more usage and it has the advantage of allowing the rest of the gears to be a bit more closely spaced.
Now, I'm sure that in the next few hours this post will be deluged with riders claiming to push a 50 or 52 - 11 gear with ease(and uphill). This is to be expected. :roll:

Trust me on this one. Skip the 11 and get a 12.

I have to say I agree on this one. During the winter I ran an 11-28 and while I did use the 50/11 it was only at the bottom of a sizable descent and pretty much only because I wanted to get into top gear.

Now for the summer I've gone back to my usual 12-30 setup, and there are occasions where I'm in top gear and I'm spinning out, but that usually means I'm hitting around 40mph, which is fast enough for me but the advantage is that I get a lower bottom gear which is always good for those 20% climbs.

Serious Cat

Its all compromises isn't it, 12-30 cassette will have wretched gaps between cogs but 12-25 would be a bugger on a 20% gradient. I agree that an 11 cog is a pointless gear for many riders btw.

Moonbiker

If switching caseste from 12-23 to a 12-26 on a standard would I need to bother with also fitting different slightly longer chain?

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/sram ... -prod17901

Thees are the cassetes


Idea was to keep using the 12-23 for everday riding & swap for the 12-26 if doing longer more hilly routes.

(Iv'e entered a local sportive in Conwy thats fairly hilly)

http://www.mapometer.com/cycling/route_3741320.html

duckson

Problem with Shimano/SRAM 11sp is that bar a 12-25 and a 12-28 which is DA only so expensive (and creaks...) they all start with an 11!
12-27 or 12-28 in Ultegra 6800 or SRAM 1170 would be perfect for me.

Saying that i've been using the wifes Allez that i upgraded to 105 with 12-27 but kept the 2300 chainrings which are 52-39 and i havent found it too bad....

neeb

duckson wrote:

Problem with Shimano/SRAM 11sp is that bar a 12-25 and a 12-28 which is DA only so expensive (and creaks...) they all start with an 11!
12-27 or 12-28 in Ultegra 6800 or SRAM 1170 would be perfect for me.

Saying that i've been using the wifes Allez that i upgraded to 105 with 12-27 but kept the 2300 chainrings which are 52-39 and i havent found it too bad....

Depending on the wheels you've got you could swap the freewheel for a Campagnolo one and run Campagnolo 11sp cassettes (cog spacing is effectively the same for all 11sp systems).