Geared advice - compact to standard

might have a bowel movement and see if that helps the thought process

At around 19st (not all fat, thankfully!), hills are not my friend and I'm living in the middle of the Surrey Hills, but for one reason or another I've standardised on 53/39 chainrings with 11-28 cassettes (Shimano) and I can get up White Down and Leith hill while seated... One big advantage I find over the compact 50/34 I used to have on my bike is that I do most of my rides spinning at a cadence of 90-100 using the 39 ring without needing to use the 11 or 12 sprockets, thus avoiding the chainline issues. I only ever used the 34 ring going up hills before as it was a bit too spinny on anything else.

Hope that is of some help in your decisions....

Clealy I'm not spinning at 100 cadence going up Leith Hill!!

Unless you're at a Cat 3 or upwards level of fitness (or really cannot spin) you want a compact.

Cassettes you can buy a couple of, wear them out and work out what you like. With 110 bcd you can go for whatever with your replacement rings.

The inner ring's only job is to sit there, gleamingly clean, showing the world how you only ever use the big ring.

Legs can be made bigger with more riding. Nothing can fix the fact that a compact chainset screams "I'm a pussy".

Triples are for mountain bikes.

^ this compact riding pussy is even wearing pink.

I have 53/39 with an 11-25 on my road bike, I'm going to try 46/36 and 12-27 on the cross bike/winter trainer.

Come next year I think I'll move the spider from cross bike to road bike and bang a 52 on the outside to run 52/36

I run 53/39 with 11-25. I don't really like to spin, more of a grind merchant but I do feel like I run out of gears going up some hills.

question is?

Should I change the 39 to a smaller ring (Campag Veloce 10sp) or is it better to go for a combined casette giving me 11-27/29 (would involve messing around with a couple of casettes and swapping out the 16t for the 11t I guess)

e

and the braze on front mech hanger on my Masi Prestige frame is too far up the seat tube to run a compact chainset - my favourite mechanic an I tried, so I have no choice on this bike anyway!

I run 53/39 with 11-25. I don't really like to spin, more of a grind merchant but I do feel like I run out of gears going up some hills.

question is?

Should I change the 39 to a smaller ring (Campag Veloce 10sp) or is it better to go for a combined casette giving me 11-27/29 (would involve messing around with a couple of casettes and swapping out the 16t for the 11t I guess)

e

You can't go smaller than a 39t on Campag's 135 BCD. Don't they do a 13t-29t or something*? Do you really need bigger than 53/13 - even Coppi didn't use that gear.

*might need medium cage mech

and the braze on front mech hanger on my Masi Prestige frame is too far up the seat tube to run a compact chainset - my favourite mechanic an I tried, so I have no choice on this bike anyway!

That's brilliant. Proper man's bike.

I think I have a medium cage mech so, will bodge an 11-29 (or 27) together.

BTW - I crunch a 51-14 fixed day in day out so love grinding...

e

Grinding your cartilage away. Look after yourself...

practice, practice & more practice!

Why would it damage my cartilage? Does powerlifting knacker it too (squatting 250+KGS and deadlifting 240)?

http://bodybuilding.about.com/od/injurypreventiontreatment/a/joint_health.htm

Why would it damage my cartilage? Does powerlifting knacker it too (squatting 250+KGS and deadlifting 240)?

I lift too. I don't lift for thousands of repetitions in a set, and I'm more mindful of form than I'd be able to maintain over a period of hours in the saddle (despite being someone with excellent form, apparently). I also lift in a more climate controlled environment.

Informative article. Nice to see that I am not a million miles off.