I’d like some suggestions/comment from some of the bike experts out here.
First off - I’ve gone from a 650c to 700 race bike this year. I’ve always had a 700 road bike, so the 700 size is not new to me. I determined that based on my size and bike strength, I’d be better off on a 700. I’m about 5’ 10" with an inseam of 30".
As opposed to buying brand new components, I took off my Durace stuff off my 650 and onto my new frame. My gearing on the 650 was 55 - 21/11. I consider myself a pretty adequate cyclist…I’ve done sub 1 hr on Olympic course before and PR for a straight 20 mile TT is just over 27 mph.
So now I’ve got a 700 with a 55 21/11. My first training TT (April without any race wheels) was pretty encouraging (25 mph), my second was a little discouraging (24.5)…but I kind of chalked that up to being a little tired. The thing I’ve noticed is that my cadence is much lower than on my 650 (obviously), but my cadence is still around 90 to 100 riding hard. One thing I feel is that when riding that big gearing, having rested/fresh legs is extremely important. I seem to be good though with running afterwards in training.
What are your thoughts…is trying to ride a 55 a bad idea for triathlon? I’m doing Gulf Coast next weekend. Would it be safe to throw a 54 or 53 on? Will it make that much of a difference??? Should I just go with what I’ve been riding and make sure I’m well rested next week??
I recently bought a new tri bike with a 54/39 front and an 11/23 cassette. I observed the same lower cadence and fatigue. After changing the casette to a 12/25 things are much better. Just grab a cheap 105 casette and see if it helps.
I’ve got one of those flash Shimano solid TT rings, didn’t realise the smallest they came in was a 54. I’m a reasonably strong cyclist (IM bike PB 4.59) but I think it is too big for me and I find myself mashing a big gear from time to time to my own detriment. I probably would not buy one again, but it does look great. See how you go, a smaller cassette at the back would help a bit, a bigger small chain ring can help to smooth the ratios out, I have a 42 which is the minimum they recommend with a 54. A 53 is probably preferable, I think that is what most pro cyclists use.
I use a 54/42 with a 11-21 on 700c wheels on my flat course triathlon bike. I can’t turn a 54/11 top gear on anything but a pretty steep downhill. The reason I use larger gearing like this is the 54 tooth chainring combined with 15 and 16 tooth cogs give me a nice, straight chain line and seem to be very important gears for time trialing on a calm day and a flat course. The chain cuts a nice straight line back to the cog I need to be in to maintain the optimal cadence for me.
There is some logic to doing this, and most people mistakenly think a 54/11 or 12 top gear is ridiculous since few people short of an Armstrong can really even turn that top gear on level ground. Well, true, but it does have other applications such as maintaining straight chain line in your most frequently used gears.
Conversely, on my road bike with a 50/34 chainring combination and an 11-23 cogset I actually do use my 11 tooth on a really hard, really fast effort for very short durations at over 30 mph like motorpacing of riding on Aderhold, Superdave or Frankie’s wheel.
a good experiment is do some brick workouts with different average cadences. This would help dial in your optimum cadence. I’ve found mine to be about the same as my run cadence.
Doesn’t matter too much on most courses, I am not a high cadence man anyway. Into head winds and long uphills it is tempting to try to power my way through them which would cost time later in the day, I have to be conscience of that and drop into the small chain ring which I don’t always like doing. It doesn’t make the bike ideal for all courses, but these days most ‘A’ races are flat to get numbers up, so I have never bothered changing things. I suppose ideally you could have one bike set up for flats and one for hills, but we don’t all own a bike shop
I find that it is on hilly courses that I need a big gear, not flat courses. But it depends on so many factors, how strong a rider is, what is the preferred cadence, how fast are the downhills, will there be a tailwind. If a hilly course only has steep, technical downhills, a big gear is not needed; while a big gear could be needed on a flat course with a strong tailwind or a moderate, straight downhill.
You don’t need to be an elite rider to need a big gear if you have a long sustained moderate downhill with a tailwind. But I think a great many triathletes are very overgeared for the speeds and power outputs that they achieve. In the case of FooFighterFan, if he’s done 27 mph on a 20 mi TT and broken an hour in an Oly tri, he is stronger than probably 95% of the people that visit this site, and the gears he might use have no relation to what most of us would use.
