youth gear restrictions for racing

kevin bannister
kevin bannister Posts: 124
edited April 2014 in Amateur race
Hi,
My son has decided he would like to try some racing so have joined local club and British Cycling.

I now realise that he has to have his gearing restricted according to his age.

The club website states the restriction for his category which is under 14, youth B is 6.45 metres.
what does this mean in terms chain ring size to cassette size. The chainset has 50/34 so what is the minimum
size cog he can select?

He is generally self regulating in that he rarely uses the 50 ring but obviously he needs to be formally restricted by
me using the stops.
Any help would be much appreciated by myself and my son as he is itching to go to his first race, many thanks in anticipation
kevin

Comments

  • paul2718
    paul2718 Posts: 471
    Somewhere around 34x11 or 50x16. Possibly a job for a smaller chain ring?

    Paul
  • maryka
    maryka Posts: 748
    Search the forum for this topic, it's come up a few times.

    Go onto British Cycling's site and have a browse around, they will have gear tables (or other websites) with equivalent gears for the various restricted gear inches.
    http://www.twitter.com/smaryka
  • mamba80
    mamba80 Posts: 5,032
    get a front 46t chain ring, a cheap one from ribble is about £15 (110 BCD) then turn in the H screw on the rear mech to lock down to an appropriate sprocket size 15t should do it.
    When he is a YA unlock down to the 14t.

    Dependant on tire size you could lock down your mech to 16t and use the current 50t chain ring but you ll need a longer H screw or use the cable to stop the mech at the 16t.
  • BeaconRuth
    BeaconRuth Posts: 2,086
    To be absolutely sure you don't exceed the max gear you really should do a roll-out test where you check that one revolution of the pedals in the highest gear doesn't take your son further than 6.45m (because the roll-out distance is dependent on wheels and tyres as well as the gear). This is how race commissaires will check youth gearing at races. Basically, measure 6.45m on the ground and make sure that one rev of the pedals (pushing the bike backwards) doesn't take it further than that.

    If the club your son has entered is a Go-Ride club there should be plenty of knowledgeable parents around who will have done this for their children many times.

    Ruth
    http://www.rutheyles.co.uk/
  • weedram
    weedram Posts: 41
    As the previous post mentions, talk to the parents of other Youth B's in the club to see what they are running.

    If you think your kid will stick with it and start racing in the National Circuit Series and the National Champs, you will want to invest in the correct chain ring and cassette combo so that you don't need to lock out gears, as this is not allowed at National level (though I have seen some Comms allow it!)

    Anyway future planning can keep the costs down for example assuming Shimano 10 speed, this is what my son used.

    Youth B 6.45m 48x16 48t CX Chainring and Shimano Ultegra Youth 16 up cassette
    Youth A 6.93m 52x16 only needed to replace the chainring with 52t
    Junior 7.93m 52x14 replaced the Youth 16 up cassette with a Junior 14 up Ultegra one
  • imposter2.0
    imposter2.0 Posts: 12,028
    weedram wrote:
    If you think your kid will stick with it and start racing in the National Circuit Series and the National Champs, you will want to invest in the correct chain ring and cassette combo so that you don't need to lock out gears, as this is not allowed at National level (though I have seen some Comms allow it!)

    I may be wrong, but I'm not sure this is correct. We have done a number of NYCS events - always with locked out gears. Never been an issue and never even been mentioned. No mention of this in the handbook (or any other regs) either...

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