I have 11-28, 12-25, and 11-32 cassettes.
Chainrings are 53-39
My "happy cadence" is 95ish, but I can tolerate 85-105 pretty well. Don't like to grind below 85 if I can help it.
I am more in the "participant" category than "competitor." My FTP is about 230ish, hopefully better by race day. Its the power/weight ratio that really gets me - right now I'm 229 lbs and my watts/kg is just under two. I'm on a good trend here, lost 40ish lbs since last Summer and 6 lbs since Thanksgiving. So I anticipate my watts/kg being better by Summer tri season, too, but still fairly modest. When I go on a long ride (2+ hours) at an endurance pace, Garmin says average speed about 18-19ish; that would be better on a closed course with no stoplights/traffic/etc but sill far from elite speeds.
My main events this year are Ironman Costa Rica and Ironman Muncie (both 70.3).
I live in Central Indiana. There are a couple of hills around here that are both long and steep enough to get me into the 25t 39t combo.
Muncie is actually a good deal flatter than where I live, so I'm pretty sure I'd be OK with the 12-25 there - maybe even tempted to get a 11-23.
http://www.ironman.com/~/media/789c657222404aecbe1a35d90ffa1bf5/im703muncie%20bike%20elevation%20tbt%202016.pdf
The elevation map for Muncie is a .pdf, not an image. Link above should work.
I am not clever interpreting the elevation maps, but looking at the Costa Rica course it has a max variation of 120 ish meters compared to 40 ish for Muncie.
The hills at the very beginning and very end look kind of "spiky" to this elevation-map-illiterate middle-aged-triathlete.
There are two loops of this course.
Does it look like the 11-28 would be "granny" enough for me for this course?
Reluctant to get into the 11-32 because (a) that much bigger jumps between gears for the rest of the course, and (b) have to change the RD to medium cage and other hassles (guess I could try one of those derailleur hanger extender things).
Chainrings are 53-39
My "happy cadence" is 95ish, but I can tolerate 85-105 pretty well. Don't like to grind below 85 if I can help it.
I am more in the "participant" category than "competitor." My FTP is about 230ish, hopefully better by race day. Its the power/weight ratio that really gets me - right now I'm 229 lbs and my watts/kg is just under two. I'm on a good trend here, lost 40ish lbs since last Summer and 6 lbs since Thanksgiving. So I anticipate my watts/kg being better by Summer tri season, too, but still fairly modest. When I go on a long ride (2+ hours) at an endurance pace, Garmin says average speed about 18-19ish; that would be better on a closed course with no stoplights/traffic/etc but sill far from elite speeds.
My main events this year are Ironman Costa Rica and Ironman Muncie (both 70.3).
I live in Central Indiana. There are a couple of hills around here that are both long and steep enough to get me into the 25t 39t combo.
Muncie is actually a good deal flatter than where I live, so I'm pretty sure I'd be OK with the 12-25 there - maybe even tempted to get a 11-23.
http://www.ironman.com/~/media/789c657222404aecbe1a35d90ffa1bf5/im703muncie%20bike%20elevation%20tbt%202016.pdf
The elevation map for Muncie is a .pdf, not an image. Link above should work.
I am not clever interpreting the elevation maps, but looking at the Costa Rica course it has a max variation of 120 ish meters compared to 40 ish for Muncie.
The hills at the very beginning and very end look kind of "spiky" to this elevation-map-illiterate middle-aged-triathlete.
There are two loops of this course.
Does it look like the 11-28 would be "granny" enough for me for this course?
Reluctant to get into the 11-32 because (a) that much bigger jumps between gears for the rest of the course, and (b) have to change the RD to medium cage and other hassles (guess I could try one of those derailleur hanger extender things).