Basso loses 2nd place podium spot to compact gearing?

Triathlon Forum
1

Could his 36 inner, 12-21 combo on L’Alpe TT have blown his 2nd place GC finish? Maybe a 39, 12-25 would have been better? Or maybe just a 12-23 cassette … I mean its the Alpes MAN, don’t run a freaking 21 tooth large cog as your biggest gear!

http://velonews.com/tour2004/news/articles/6667.0.html

Basso said his low point was the mountain time trial to L’Alpe d’Huez in the Alps, when he could only manage an eighth-place finish, 2:23 behind Armstrong.

“L’Alpe d’Huez time trial was the most difficult moment of the whole Tour for me,” he said. "I’m not a good time trialist but we’d worked hard to improve my technique - unfortunately we made a mistake when choosing my gears.

“In training, a front chain ring of 36 combined with a 21-tooth cog behind seemed idea, but on the day after almost two weeks of hard racing it was too big a gear and I struggled to turn the pedals in my usual cadence.”

2

Ahh poor baby looses 2:23 when he doesn’t have Lance and Postal to draft off :wink:
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3

36/21 is about 1¼% higher gearing than 39/23, whereas 36/23 would have been roughly equivalant to 39/25. Meanwhile, 50/11 is a slightly bigger gear than 53/12. So an 11-23 cogset would have left plenty of downhill speed (if same was desired) while still leaving a usable low gear.
I’ve used 55-42/11-23 for climbs as a training exercise, but would never choose that for a hilly race. In fact, since there was NO descent on L’Alpe TT, why not run a 12-25?
Just one more reason Lance wins: Better decision-making!