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Just put on a bigger chainring? (And use SRAM cassettes instead of Shimano, they have much more linear ratio gaps)
Your gears should be so that in a full gas flat sprint (1500W, 65kph) you are in the 13 or maybe the 12. The 11 or 10 is for descending at 70-80kph when you are are putting out much less power, aerodynamics is much more crucial and you are focusing on cornering and following the wheels.
No one can be bothered with half-step triples and shit in a race situation (TTs excepted perhaps)
leggy_blonde-
use SRAM cassettes instead of Shimano, they have much more linear ratio gaps
I've just bought a couple of SRAM cassettes (fucking SRAM!) because (I think) they are all steel, whereas the Shimano cassettes have the two lowest gears in aluminium which wear out before the rest of the cassette.
If anyone knows where to get the lowest three cogs on a Shimano MTB cassette as a spare part, I'm all ears.
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No one can be bothered with half-step triples and shit in a race situation (TTs excepted perhaps)
TT is the market I envision driving eventual adoption of my idea. But the whole concept is predicated on being electronically shifted, where hopefully the bother disappears altogether.
It could be two separate shifting modes where if it doesn't half step it just minimises front shifts, or long-press to skip the half-step or vice versa.
Because there's only 2t difference in the big rings, it should be possible to make shifts between them almost as smooth as rear shifts, in two ways. First, since they're almost the same size they can be right next to each other, like cassette cogs. I verified this by putting all these rings on a crank with the aid of a 130/110 38t. Second, the 2t gap means it lines up every 180 degrees. With a bit of CAD shift magic, and perhaps a crank position sensor to time the shifts, I bet they could be super snappy and efficient.
The TT folks would love it, I bet. And surely the roadies could see the benefit when it comes to taking a pull on the front of a pack.
hippy
Kimmo
As far as chordal action goes,
It's the principle of the thing. It can be specced (not even redesigned, really) to be more efficient, so why not?
Like tester says, yuck. I want my cogs to approximate circles, not polygons.
A bigger reason to put more metal in your drivetrain is to reduce wear. It's certainly the main reason I hacked OSPWs into my RD-9070 cage; holds like 3% more chain. Bike weighs 6.14kg btw, so not gonna break the weight bank...
But the main reason small cogs blow chunks is the huge gaps between them, which get comically large below 12t in relation to what's actually desirable at high speed.
If you want to maximise your speed for a given effort, you need close ratios. Otherwise you're either going a bit slower than you could, or trying harder by spinning or stomping.