Interesting! How big of a front chainring are you running? How's the shifting?

I did the exact same thing a few years ago. I'm 66 and I found that I almost never used the 11/12 sprockets. Living in New England and a hilly area I really like my Franken-cassette!! The only downside was buying 2 cassettes.

52-36, now.

53-39, in future.


Shifting is good. Same as it was with an 11-28 cassette.

I replaced the chain during install and added 2 links of length. Adjusted B screw on rear mech to provide more space. I think this dura-ace mechanical could actually handle a 34t cog!

It's my wife's bike, but she lets me use it. ;) She's a cat 1 on road & All-American sprint and standard triathlete. Average speeds in racing:25-28mph. I have similar average speeds. I'm much less competitive! We both come from track and field sprint background so high cadences are preferred for sure, especially when climbing. Hence, we wanted the 32t cog.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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Bingo! Waste of space. Better off spending Watts elsewhere on course than at >34mph unless you're world class. Time savings per kcal energy expense at those speeds is horrible!

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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I stitched together three cassettes (one Ultegra, one 105, and one XTR) for Worlds TT in Austria in 2018 to make a custom 12-40 casette that had good gears for both the long flat, the halfway climb, and the downhil. 62T single ring up front. I've used it one time since for a very hilly TT back in July - it's easier than to set up a FD, two chain rings, and new shifters for the odd hilly TT and works just fine.

I've considered this for flatter TT work.

Around here, my rides are split literally 50/50 every other day between pan flat and really hilly.

My work location is in the farmland down east from the city. Average of 25ft per mile. Speed range is 18 to 30mph depending on wind. In town? The flattest ride out of my house is 60ft per mile. From there it can get up to 80 or 100ft per mile. All of it very short up/down hills at 6% or so grade. I find it MUCH faster to be able to put out power at some ungodly speed down those hills then "flatten" the ensuing rollers.

I would be swapping cassettes every other ride, every other day. Not a huge time spend, but still, would be annoying.

I dunno, I could leave one on the rear disc wheel and one on the 90mm rear wheel I guess.

Hmmmmmm........I like buying crap and trying things too much.

Junior Cassette.

People have been doing that since, will, I don't remember, but the first time I did it was on a 105-10 speed bike made in 2008 for a friend that had serious knee issues.

You probably don't Crit Race, but that cassette is not allowed for anyone over 18, or at least that used to be the rules. I haven't raced in a few years.

Anyway, whatever floats your boat :)

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

cool post!

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
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There's no rules that restrict what you can run as long as you are over 18.

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Heath Dotson
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You are correct, I had it backwards. The junior gearing is the 26ft rule - 52-14 max.

The adults can run anything they like. Been a very long time since I cared about that rule.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

I've done this before too. One other consideration: If you care about drivetrain efficiency, you may want to avoid using your smallest/biggest cogs to avoid cross chaining and set up your cassette accordingly.

Completely agree. Drivetrain efficiency consideration were a strong secondary to optimal gear selection when deciding to go with this setup. That's one of the things that this cassette does very well for someone spending a lot of time at 24-28mph, assuming a preferred cadence of a little over 100rpm on short cranks.

If I could make it "perfect" I'd probably have opted for starting with a 13t cog, but 14t as a start is SO much better than a wasted 11t & 12t cog.

Would love to hear if someone has put together a cassette that starts at 13t.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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Ha. I literally built that exact same cassette myself for a ride I do once or twice a year with a whole lotta climbing

I have a 12-30t 11 speed cassette that’s a mash-up of a 12-25 and an 11-30. Basically trading the 11t cog of the 11-30 for the magical 16t. Split is between 17 and 19t cogs.

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Love it. May go that route if this one feels like too much use of our littlest cogs (wife's bike, that we share for TT's). Good thinking!

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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I was making my own 11x29 mashups (for Campy) before they were a thing.

Not taken it to the same extent as you, but I bought a semi-custom Miche Primato cassette for a particularly hilly triathlon in Norway where I didn't want the silly Shimano concentration of spacing in the wrong part of the range. Some nice options with Miche. My particular issue was I wanted 12-30 in 11s with more resolution in the climbing gears than the nearest Shitmano option would give me (11-30 - they don't do a 12-30 in 11 speed, I don't think).

Produced a chart and everything.

Cheers, Rich.

Have a look at some of the Miche options further down the page, plenty starting at 13t.

https://thecycleclinic.co.uk/...tes-for-shimano-sram

For example;

13T start
13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23T
13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-23-25T
13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-22-24-26T
13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25-27T
13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25-28T
13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-26-29T

They can also do custom but they might fight you in it. I tried to order the same gearing as Rotor UNO 11-32 for my 1x tri setup, for small jumps in small cogs and big jumps in climbing gears. They claimed that it would shift like junk and refused to make it.

Ordered the Rotor (expensive but super light) and it shifts great.

Also, Miche buyers beware. Since each cog is separate, there are no spiders to spread the load. They may dig into your freehub.

I also bought a custom 12-30 cassette like that from Miche Primato ("I did that too" seems to be the theme of my posts on this thread).

I have to say though, after the first time, I never used it again. An expensive experiment. I just really didn't like the way it shifted compared to the Shimano cassettes. Did you notice any difference?

I think I'll try that too. I hadn't even realized I could do that.

When Shimano went from 10s to 11s, I figured, "great, now my 11-27 cassette will have a 16t cog". Instead they upped the biggest ring to 28 and *still* left out the 16.

So I replaced the stock 11-28 with 12-28 and just accepted that I wasn't going to go as fast downhill. I run 50 up front so that seemed like a big deal. I was mildly surprised to find I still almost never missed the 11.

Interesting that you had that experience. I've only got that cassette (Miche Primato Light) on my disc wheel which has seen pretty limited use, but I've been very happy with it. The shifting has been fine, and that's with Shimano r7000 (105). Maybe if I was using something fancier I might have noticed, but I click the shift lever and it moves the chain! YMMV.

Anyone have personal experience or visual evidence of damages to hubs using single cog setups like Miche?

Very interesting option.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
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A waste of watts if you're trying to push hard at those speeds. I'm not that strong since I'm old, but I'm relatively very aero and efficient based on what I've seen in the thread about race power/speed. At higher speeds, such as on gradual downhills, I like to concentrate on getting as aero as possible (shrug/turtle/low) and continue to pedal at a decent cadence but relatively low power output such as ~100 watts. I find I really fly without much effort since I'm very aero, and at that power output it's like active recovery. Pretty much impossible to do that if you don't have at least reasonable gears, for me 50 x 11 w/ 165 cranks is plenty.

Speaking as an older rider whose fastest average of any ride this year is 23 mph, I find it hard to imagine averaging in the mid to upper 20s without having reasonable high gears, but hey, whatever works for you.

YMMV.