Road bikes: What's your lowest gearing?
Poll: Road bikes: What's your lowest gearing?
Total Members Polled: 41
Discussion
I'm wondering what sort of gear ratio people are pushing up the steepest of inclines?
I'll be honest and say that my puny legs seem to struggle with the >15% stuff with my 36/28T. It's not that I have to stop or get off and push, but the (obviously) meagre power I'm able to put out means I'm down to walking pace and my cadence drops to around 30-40 which feels reeeally low and can't be good for my VAM, or my knees.
I did Streatley recently (one of the 100 Climbs) which is just over 1km at about 11%, including 0.7km all above 15%, and although it was very cold and I guess I didn't post a bad time, it was a fairly grim experience. I'm sure I could go faster with a higher cadence as my legs weren't shot at the end, just not able to grind any faster. I realise there's probably a contradiction in there, but that's how it feels.
Now of course the Rule V answer is just to get out there and hammer the hills more, and within the time available I'm doing that. But it's a slow process getting faster up hills and I'm getting fed up with being overtaken by old duffers and ladies positively whizzing past me on something like a 34/30T, grinning, sat up and their legs going like billy-o.
Now there is of course no shame in being beaten by a lady or an old git (the chap who runs our club is mid-50s but built like a whippet and he climbs like a beast, it'll be a long time until I can catch him!), but on anything other than a longer >15% climb I'm just about able to keep up with the leaders, not be struggling at the back of the pack. Most of the faster guys seem to have much higher cadence on the big hills too, and that's not just because they're pressing harder on the pedals before anyone says!
I've been eyeing a 12-30T cassette which should improve things a bit, or maybe I'm just needing to go the whole hog and fit a compact chainset? Or might it just be that I do indeed need to MTFU and get on with it?
So, I'm interested to know what your lowest gear is and if you think it's sufficient? Do please note of the kinds of hills you commonly tackle.
Rather than list 100 different chainring/cassette options I thought I'd group the poll by gearing ratio. I know things like crank length and tyre size also affect overall gearing/power transfer, but I'm concentrating on the main gearing as I assume it makes the biggest difference. None of this old-fangled gear inches nonsense though just simple arthmetic, the closer to 1 the lower the gearing. I've listed some common combinations, otherwise just calculate:
1 / smallest chainring teeth * largest cassette ring teeth
Some common combinations
39/23T 0.59 <- Real Men, legends from days of old
39/25T 0.64
39/28T 0.72
34/25T 0.74
36/27T 0.75
36/28T 0.78 <- Me
34/27T 0.79
34/28T 0.82
36/30T 0.83
30/25T 0.83
34/30T 0.88
30/27T 0.90 <- Must be like riding an e-bike?
I'll be honest and say that my puny legs seem to struggle with the >15% stuff with my 36/28T. It's not that I have to stop or get off and push, but the (obviously) meagre power I'm able to put out means I'm down to walking pace and my cadence drops to around 30-40 which feels reeeally low and can't be good for my VAM, or my knees.
I did Streatley recently (one of the 100 Climbs) which is just over 1km at about 11%, including 0.7km all above 15%, and although it was very cold and I guess I didn't post a bad time, it was a fairly grim experience. I'm sure I could go faster with a higher cadence as my legs weren't shot at the end, just not able to grind any faster. I realise there's probably a contradiction in there, but that's how it feels.
Now of course the Rule V answer is just to get out there and hammer the hills more, and within the time available I'm doing that. But it's a slow process getting faster up hills and I'm getting fed up with being overtaken by old duffers and ladies positively whizzing past me on something like a 34/30T, grinning, sat up and their legs going like billy-o.
Now there is of course no shame in being beaten by a lady or an old git (the chap who runs our club is mid-50s but built like a whippet and he climbs like a beast, it'll be a long time until I can catch him!), but on anything other than a longer >15% climb I'm just about able to keep up with the leaders, not be struggling at the back of the pack. Most of the faster guys seem to have much higher cadence on the big hills too, and that's not just because they're pressing harder on the pedals before anyone says!
I've been eyeing a 12-30T cassette which should improve things a bit, or maybe I'm just needing to go the whole hog and fit a compact chainset? Or might it just be that I do indeed need to MTFU and get on with it?
So, I'm interested to know what your lowest gear is and if you think it's sufficient? Do please note of the kinds of hills you commonly tackle.
Rather than list 100 different chainring/cassette options I thought I'd group the poll by gearing ratio. I know things like crank length and tyre size also affect overall gearing/power transfer, but I'm concentrating on the main gearing as I assume it makes the biggest difference. None of this old-fangled gear inches nonsense though just simple arthmetic, the closer to 1 the lower the gearing. I've listed some common combinations, otherwise just calculate:
1 / smallest chainring teeth * largest cassette ring teeth
Some common combinations
39/23T 0.59 <- Real Men, legends from days of old
39/25T 0.64
39/28T 0.72
34/25T 0.74
36/27T 0.75
36/28T 0.78 <- Me
34/27T 0.79
34/28T 0.82
36/30T 0.83
30/25T 0.83
34/30T 0.88
30/27T 0.90 <- Must be like riding an e-bike?
Edited by loudlashadjuster on Monday 4th April 17:03
)Depends, on my road bike I have compact chainset with a 12/28 cassette, so quite sensible.
I also ride a fixie as a winter bike/lunchtime bike when working away. Since starting a new contract in High Wycombe I have flipped the wheel over to give me a slightly lower gear of 42/18 - which I am comfortable riding hills with gradients up to about 10% anything more and its not a lot of fun, even though I can MTFU and get up hills with short ramps to 16%.
I am starting to realise that a fixie is completely the wrong bike for the High Wycombe area and its time for an N+1 ( probably an On-One Pickenflick with SRAM 1x11, geared with 42 chain-ring and an 11-32 cassette).
I also ride a fixie as a winter bike/lunchtime bike when working away. Since starting a new contract in High Wycombe I have flipped the wheel over to give me a slightly lower gear of 42/18 - which I am comfortable riding hills with gradients up to about 10% anything more and its not a lot of fun, even though I can MTFU and get up hills with short ramps to 16%.
I am starting to realise that a fixie is completely the wrong bike for the High Wycombe area and its time for an N+1 ( probably an On-One Pickenflick with SRAM 1x11, geared with 42 chain-ring and an 11-32 cassette).
39/28 on the racier bike and used for everything including La Marmotte.
36/28 on the others, a nice balance really.
I've never really understood people who have such close ratios cassettes, like 11-23 or 11-25 unless they live in areas that genuinely do not have big hills.
The only real reasoning I have heard is for cadence, which seems a bit daft.
36/28 on the others, a nice balance really.
I've never really understood people who have such close ratios cassettes, like 11-23 or 11-25 unless they live in areas that genuinely do not have big hills.
The only real reasoning I have heard is for cadence, which seems a bit daft.
Sounds like you are over thinking it OP if you want lower gears then fit a lower cassette
All my fastest climb times and hill climb wins were on a 39/25, but you had no choice put to push hard and go for it. I now have a variety of geared bikes
Lower gears are good, but often once you go really low (say 34/28+) each revolution gets you so little reward for each pedal stroke the pace becomes very slow. Thats great for loong climbs and mountains, but I get frustrated sometimes.
Also I find you need to factor in fatigue and that for me "legs tire before lungs" , using a 39/25 round climbs in Cornwall where they went up to 32% was great, but after 50 miles my legs were knackered! Then I still had loads more climbs left, I couldn't just chill and spin, instead I had to grind each one out. Whereas if I had a 34/28 I could have paced myself and done 100 miles with ease, instead of 40 miles of fast climbing then 40 miles of bloody hard work.
My favourite climbing technique on short (under 5 minutes) climbs is to use a big gear out the saddle for the first 75%, then when the legs tire, sit down and spin like a mad hamster back straight to the top.
In answer to your question it mostly depends on where you live in the country , your weight and then climbing style. If I had to pick one I would go for 53/36 with a 28 top gear on the back, none of my bikes have it though as I have just stuck with whats on there!
I quite like close gearing, one of my bikes has a 11-25 and my last a 13-25, you can keep cadence close. Im not too fussed about it now though, my winter road bike has a 11-30 and the gaps can be very frustrating on lumpy/flat rides, in that you are spinning along, need an easier gear, go down one but the gap is too big, whereas with smaller gaps its more seamless. Although I'm less fussed by this now
All my fastest climb times and hill climb wins were on a 39/25, but you had no choice put to push hard and go for it. I now have a variety of geared bikes
Lower gears are good, but often once you go really low (say 34/28+) each revolution gets you so little reward for each pedal stroke the pace becomes very slow. Thats great for loong climbs and mountains, but I get frustrated sometimes.
Also I find you need to factor in fatigue and that for me "legs tire before lungs" , using a 39/25 round climbs in Cornwall where they went up to 32% was great, but after 50 miles my legs were knackered! Then I still had loads more climbs left, I couldn't just chill and spin, instead I had to grind each one out. Whereas if I had a 34/28 I could have paced myself and done 100 miles with ease, instead of 40 miles of fast climbing then 40 miles of bloody hard work.
My favourite climbing technique on short (under 5 minutes) climbs is to use a big gear out the saddle for the first 75%, then when the legs tire, sit down and spin like a mad hamster back straight to the top.
In answer to your question it mostly depends on where you live in the country , your weight and then climbing style. If I had to pick one I would go for 53/36 with a 28 top gear on the back, none of my bikes have it though as I have just stuck with whats on there!
I quite like close gearing, one of my bikes has a 11-25 and my last a 13-25, you can keep cadence close. Im not too fussed about it now though, my winter road bike has a 11-30 and the gaps can be very frustrating on lumpy/flat rides, in that you are spinning along, need an easier gear, go down one but the gap is too big, whereas with smaller gaps its more seamless. Although I'm less fussed by this now
Edited by TwistingMyMelon on Monday 30th November 15:52
matt-ITR said:
39/28 on the racier bike and used for everything including La Marmotte.
36/28 on the others, a nice balance really.
I've never really understood people who have such close ratios cassettes, like 11-23 or 11-25 unless they live in areas that genuinely do not have big hills.
The only real reasoning I have heard is for cadence, which seems a bit daft.
I genuinely prefer my 11-25 as there are no big jumps in between any of the gears, find I'm left searching a bit when moving back to a 11-28. 36/28 on the others, a nice balance really.
I've never really understood people who have such close ratios cassettes, like 11-23 or 11-25 unless they live in areas that genuinely do not have big hills.
The only real reasoning I have heard is for cadence, which seems a bit daft.
TwistingMyMelon said:
In answer to your question it mostly depends on where you live in the country , your weight and then climbing style. If I had to pick one I would go for 53/36 with a 28 top gear on the back, none of my bikes have it though as I have just stuck with whats on there!
I'm in the Chilterns, so a lot of short, steepish stuff and not very much flat unless I head down to the Thames. I'm currently about 76kg, but as long as I (mostly) stay off the ale and keep doing the 50-150km a week that I've been managing recently (more is tricky due to family etc.) then this should continue to drop (I was nearer 80kg at the beginning of the year).I've a semi-compact 52-36 and a 12-28T cassette and you're right, I'm probably just being impatient. I guess can already see an improvement in speeds since I got the bike in the summer and it seems that most have similar gearing, so maybe I just need to to get on with it and stop posting rubbish threads betraying my lack of climbing ability
loudlashadjuster said:
TwistingMyMelon said:
In answer to your question it mostly depends on where you live in the country , your weight and then climbing style. If I had to pick one I would go for 53/36 with a 28 top gear on the back, none of my bikes have it though as I have just stuck with whats on there!
I'm in the Chilterns, so a lot of short, steepish stuff and not very much flat unless I head down to the Thames. I'm currently about 76kg, but as long as I (mostly) stay off the ale and keep doing the 50-150km a week that I've been managing recently (more is tricky due to family etc.) then this should continue to drop (I was nearer 80kg at the beginning of the year).I've a semi-compact 52-36 and a 12-28T cassette and you're right, I'm probably just being impatient. I guess can already see an improvement in speeds since I got the bike in the summer and it seems that most have similar gearing, so maybe I just need to to get on with it and stop posting rubbish threads betraying my lack of climbing ability
Sound similar to me im in Wilts with similar climbs and about 11 stone
Dont forget the winter will stunt your climbing ability, im much slower in the Winter, cold air is hard work! I'd only get close to my PBs in Spring/summer
If you want to toughen up and boost leg ability on hills get s singlespeed/fixie, forces you out of your comfort zone!
At the moment it's a 0.72 for me. A 39 x 28 gear on my old 'winterised' bike. It used to be a "real man/legendary" 0.59 when it wore it's original 13-23t block, which I can't believe now, but I used to ride in Yorkshire (Ripon way) and back 'home' in South Wales. Later still, it was a great set of gears for north Essex, but in recent years I found it just too unpleasant in the Surrey Hills. It now has an 11-28t cassette which has given me better 'top end' (potential) speed, as well as a more hill-friendly bottom end gear.
I bought a compact road bike in 2010, because I wanted a modern bike, and had a 34 x 25t (0.74) on that, and this year bought a Trek Emonda which is sold as a "climber's bike" and has a 34 x 28t (0.82) but that is currently away for the winter due to lack of guards.
I'm claiming extra 'man points' for being on a >15kg, "Made in England" lugged steel bike, still with it's original downtube shifters. One of the staff at a LBS recently referred to them as "suicide shifters"...
Those extra 5 teeth at the rear were a complete game-changer on that bike when I swapped the cassette, turning it from a torture device to a happy place to sit for a couple of hours, and whilst it isn't "quick" uphill, it's a whole lot faster, and more importantly more forgiving (on the knees) on climbs than it ever was.
I noticed someone questioning the wisdom of the closely spaced 13-23t cassettes a few posts up. Well, given the option, and if I'd known more about road bikes when I bought it in 1997, I'd have opted for a bigger spread of gears right from the start. But most bikes back then came with higher gearing than is 'normal' now. It was just what was available on new bikes, and having grown up in the 1970s and 1980s, I was used to 5/6/10/12 speed bikes with pretty high gears. A good choice of suitable gears for a variety of terrain/gradients is a very useful thing, and surely is the sole purpose for inventing the derailleur gear mechanism in the first place. What's the point of having a whole bunch of closely spaced high gears if you then end up with nothing low to bail you out when the road points skyward? I certainly don't believe in this "put it on the big ring and gurn" malarkey, despite having a fairly low natural cadence myself. Low gears rock! (especially when you are closer to fifty than you are to forty, and your beard is turning white
)
I bought a compact road bike in 2010, because I wanted a modern bike, and had a 34 x 25t (0.74) on that, and this year bought a Trek Emonda which is sold as a "climber's bike" and has a 34 x 28t (0.82) but that is currently away for the winter due to lack of guards.
I'm claiming extra 'man points' for being on a >15kg, "Made in England" lugged steel bike, still with it's original downtube shifters. One of the staff at a LBS recently referred to them as "suicide shifters"...
Those extra 5 teeth at the rear were a complete game-changer on that bike when I swapped the cassette, turning it from a torture device to a happy place to sit for a couple of hours, and whilst it isn't "quick" uphill, it's a whole lot faster, and more importantly more forgiving (on the knees) on climbs than it ever was.
I noticed someone questioning the wisdom of the closely spaced 13-23t cassettes a few posts up. Well, given the option, and if I'd known more about road bikes when I bought it in 1997, I'd have opted for a bigger spread of gears right from the start. But most bikes back then came with higher gearing than is 'normal' now. It was just what was available on new bikes, and having grown up in the 1970s and 1980s, I was used to 5/6/10/12 speed bikes with pretty high gears. A good choice of suitable gears for a variety of terrain/gradients is a very useful thing, and surely is the sole purpose for inventing the derailleur gear mechanism in the first place. What's the point of having a whole bunch of closely spaced high gears if you then end up with nothing low to bail you out when the road points skyward? I certainly don't believe in this "put it on the big ring and gurn" malarkey, despite having a fairly low natural cadence myself. Low gears rock! (especially when you are closer to fifty than you are to forty, and your beard is turning white
)I have a nice round "1" on my commuting bike, it's a triple with a 28 on the front and a 28 on the rear. It did come with a 34t rear cassette, but frankly 1.21 is absurdly low - I'd be spinning it out at less than 8mph!
On my road bike I have a more manly 0.68, a 34/23t combo. That's mainly because it's only 9 speed though, for most of the riding I do I choose to have the 16t in the middle of the block rather than the 25t/28t on the low end. If it was 10 or 11 speed I wouldn't be forced in to that choice.
On my road bike I have a more manly 0.68, a 34/23t combo. That's mainly because it's only 9 speed though, for most of the riding I do I choose to have the 16t in the middle of the block rather than the 25t/28t on the low end. If it was 10 or 11 speed I wouldn't be forced in to that choice.
sjg said:
0.94. I don't train like a pro, so I don't use the same gears as a pro. I'd rather gently spin up the steep hills than have to stop or walk.
Pros use a compact and a medium cage derailleur at the back in the big mountains. So 34 front and 32 back.Old school pros, like Pantani, used to scorn anyone who went below a 24. With the old standard 42 tooth front.
I ue compact (34/50) with 28t cassette on my road bikes. This suits the terrain I ride, which is mostly North Yorkshire, but could sometimes could do with a lower bottom gear (30 or 32t) for the really steep stuff (>20%) but generally it's fine. I don't find any issues with the supposedly big 'jumps' between gears.
I'm definitely a spinner, so do prefer lower gearing.
I'm definitely a spinner, so do prefer lower gearing.
matt-ITR said:
39/28 on the racier bike and used for everything including La Marmotte.
36/28 on the others, a nice balance really.
I've never really understood people who have such close ratios cassettes, like 11-23 or 11-25 unless they live in areas that genuinely do not have big hills.
The only real reasoning I have heard is for cadence, which seems a bit daft.
Not really. 36/28 on the others, a nice balance really.
I've never really understood people who have such close ratios cassettes, like 11-23 or 11-25 unless they live in areas that genuinely do not have big hills.
The only real reasoning I have heard is for cadence, which seems a bit daft.
Running an 11-28 10sp cassette on my winter bike left me with a gap in the range where I always naturally wanted to be, swapping to a 12-28 has left a far nicer range, for me anyway.
Had a similar dilemma on the summer bike, fit an 11-27 and keep the higher 11t or lose the 16t (IIRC), in the end I went for the 12-27 which I meant I kept the 16t.
First world problems and all that
You missed 42/25
I did have that on my road bike for a season or two and was fine up everything in Surrey though it wasn't conducive to an easy ride if that is what you wanted, moved to 39/25 when I moved that powermeter to my TT bike, Think its ok for me, do use the smallest gear up the steeper stuff fairly often, but then I don't go out of my way to go up the steepest climbs.
As ever, if you have enough watts then most hills are not an issue, just depends how hard you want to ride them! I do say 'most', not 'all' there are obviously some hills that require even Alberto Contador to stick a pretty tiny gear on for!!
I did have that on my road bike for a season or two and was fine up everything in Surrey though it wasn't conducive to an easy ride if that is what you wanted, moved to 39/25 when I moved that powermeter to my TT bike, Think its ok for me, do use the smallest gear up the steeper stuff fairly often, but then I don't go out of my way to go up the steepest climbs.
As ever, if you have enough watts then most hills are not an issue, just depends how hard you want to ride them! I do say 'most', not 'all' there are obviously some hills that require even Alberto Contador to stick a pretty tiny gear on for!!
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