52t front chainring, 30mm tires on wide rims, and what looks like a 10-33t cassette. 172.5mm crank?
I’m curious how that gear range compares. By my calculations, his easy gear is equivalent to about a 39t x 25t, which is reasonable.
I’ll paste a gain ratio comparison chart below comparing to a 48t x 9-42t (Campy Ekar) which I like, but that 9t and even 10t are just too much friction for racing, so I add in a 58t x fictional/dream 13s 11-50t for lower friction and because I think that’d be my dream set up that would cover me for 55+mph descents and and HC climbs at minimal friction… would the lack of a FD, the 11t minimum cog and reduced weight overcome the chain crossover friction/losses in power?
to me the 30mm tyres are the interesting part. san remo is big ring all the way ride for top pros so yeah, why not ditch the unnecessary parts.
as far as i am aware though, the road surface is pretty reasonable so to see WvA running tyre widths that are more like what you’d expect at roubaix is interesting. i can see that for such a long race the comfort/body preservation aspect is significant but minimising all resistance is still the biggest thing. when most are debating 25mm vs 28mm this is another level!
Not likely giving up any rolling resistance, might in fact gain. Realistically there’s only a few kilometers where aero would come into play as a protected rider. My bet is to have more grip for Pogio descent.
Not likely giving up any rolling resistance, might in fact gain. Realistically there’s only a few kilometers where aero would come into play as a protected rider. My bet is to have more grip for Pogio descent.
^^^^^This.
WVA averaged over 40kph on the Poggio, so no need for a small ring there. Probably only needed the back 1/2 of his cassette to save the legs on the Turchino.
Surely the Sram marketing team deployed an effective strategy here. In the end WVA ‘only’ needed to descend and out sprint Ganna for second. I wonder how a better aero pairing or less drivetrain friction would have any impact on the result.
Surely the Sram marketing team deployed an effective strategy here. In the end WVA ‘only’ needed to descend and out sprint Ganna for second. I wonder how a better aero pairing or less drivetrain friction would have any impact on the result.
That setup would have excess drivetrain friction in two scenarios, crosschained to the largest or next largest cog, or in the smallest (10t) cog. He very likely never did the first, most likely never even used the 4th cog; and would only use the 10 for the sprint. It wasn’t the increased drag from the 10t that caused him to sit down mid-sprint.
Surely the Sram marketing team deployed an effective strategy here. In the end WVA ‘only’ needed to descend and out sprint Ganna for second. I wonder how a better aero pairing or less drivetrain friction would have any impact on the result.That setup would have excess drivetrain friction in two scenarios, crosschained to the largest or next largest cog, or in the smallest (10t) cog. He very likely never did the first, most likely never even used the 4th cog; and would only use the 10 for the sprint. It wasn’t the increased drag from the 10t that caused him to sit down mid-sprint.Cross-chaining has surprisingly low loss and more than outweighed by large to large chainring-sprocket use (in a double),
