Gearing and muscle development

Creatine and water retention - this is the age of aquarius.

As do I my hairstyle, fashion, social economics and music. Why would nutrition be different? I'm living the dream.

I like a man with dedication.

Don't forget crank length has an effect on the gear you can push, even though it doesn't show up in the 'inches' you are pushing. Short cranks effectively increase the gear: just think about it - the shorter the crank the smaller the distance travelled by your foot for every mile travelled.
In the distant past 'Cycling' reports of races would often quote a rider's gear as (say) '84 inches with six and a half inch cranks'.
There is an ideal crank length for every rider. There are formulae to calculate this based on leg length, but I think trial and error is best.

I just like 165, despite having long legs.

on the rabbit gear calc it shows Gain ratio, which is the thing that changes with crank length.

http://software.bareknucklebrigade.com/rabbit.applet.html

I rock 170s on my fixed, hopefully getting my 180s for my geared bike soon.

Having only ridden a MTB with 175mm cranks for many years, it was weird a year ago to try 165mm. It felt plain wrong (and still does). Since then I have settled on 170mm for fixed and changed to 170mm for my general purpose hack (trailer and child seat pulling duties).

170mm is much kinder on my knees than 175mm ever was yet 165mm still feels wrong and too cramped to get a good circular pedalling motion. I still can't believe 10mm difference on crank length can feel like so much. As Wayfarer says, I've tried working it out with a formula and it comes out near 175mm for me yet wrecks my knees, just go with what feels best.

There used to be some gym-bunny sort of guy who occasionally posted on here. He was into homo-eroticism too...
EDIT: I think there were two of those twats...
shudder

A few more winter miles, and a bit less time in the gym, and anything is possible...

I feel sick

I must admin I cant really tell any difference between my bike with 170 and other with 165 cranks

Another clubmate story.

A talented rider had accepted the theory that time trials ( where you would expect to push big gears) needed longer cranks that road racing where more modest gears arethe order of the day ( you need a higher rev rate to adjust instantly to changes of speed in the bunch). A bank holiday weekend approached when he had entered two events, a time trial and a road race. Our rider was (and is still) a stickler for immaculate presentation of himself and his bike, so he had dismantled both his time trial and his r.r. bike in order to polish everything up for his big weekend.

He won both races outright.

It was only later that week he noticed he had muddled the cranks and had different lengths on each bike.

He says he hasn't worried too much about crank length since then.

jesus fucking christ you live up to your name

Having only ridden a MTB with 175mm cranks for many years, it was weird a year ago to try 165mm. It felt plain wrong (and still does). Since then I have settled on 170mm for fixed and changed to 170mm for my general purpose hack (trailer and child seat pulling duties).

170mm is much kinder on my knees than 175mm ever was yet 165mm still feels wrong and too cramped to get a good circular pedalling motion. I still can't believe 10mm difference on crank length can feel like so much. As Wayfarer says, I've tried working it out with a formula and it comes out near 175mm for me yet wrecks my knees, just go with what feels best.

So is a shorter crank easier on the knees then? I've been riding fixed for about 6 weeks. I've switched up to a bigger gear (52/17) from what it came with which I like but it's putting a lot of pressure on my knees. I'm 6'2" and the cranks are 175.

You're riding an 80" gear? Are you in London? Are you mad? No wonder your knees are grumbling.

I know that's pretty high but I like high top speed for my commute. I think I may switch back down to a 50/17, it might help me to spin a bit better.

Littigator,

Is the Dynamo Hill Climb in November an open event or just for club members?

With that gear, I presume you are a climber. I am not but I do litigate.

I think I may switch back down to a 50/17, it might help me to spin a bit better.

yeah - 50:17 is a nice spinny gear!

I wanna do richmond park... only done it once years ago on the old geared. Love to give it a go on the old shirley.

Friday night RP laps?

I did a couple of laps of Richmond park on the Rapha ride on Saturday, great fun, especially outpacing geared people going up and down the hills. FFS they freewheeled downhill slower than me spinning like crazy on 48/19.

I definitely think we should do a forum ride around the park, could really go and piss of London Dynamo on a Saturday morning (though am not sure how many of the drunkards on here would be able to get out west for 9am on a Saturday). Though I would add I have a great Italian coffee machine and only live in Kew Gardens so could supply rocket fuel coffee.

Offers of coffee.. meetings in the park.. promises of Dyno domination?? Who has sent you and what do they want of me?! ;)

It could be such fun to weave in and out of their peloton. Time to assemble our crack troops and descend upon the park.

Littigator,

Is the Dynamo Hill Climb in November an open event or just for club members?

With that gear, I presume you are a climber. I am not but I do litigate.

It's a club member only event, which looks like a good thing given some of the postson this thread, we'd have random mad entrants pasting the walls with us ;)

Nice to have a bit of competition though eh!

I pootled down to the Catford and Bec at the weekend on my geared. Gave the Bec a go but had my helmet round my handlebars which kept banging into my knees when i stood up. Oh yeah and I had a cold...oh and I think my rear was going flat...so I only managed a (cough) 2.58 (oh the shame)

I had also already ridden down to the Catford and back across to Titsey at breakneck speed...yes I do have plenty of excuses thankyouverymuch

That's a pity as it would be good to see some of the "mad entrants" from here showing the silky smooth blue black and gold people how hills are climbed. I did manage to overtake Rusty and three others in RP on Saturday when I was riding fixed only to have them stroll past me on the climb just after Kingston Gate. Mind you, they were steadfastly obeying the speed limit.

2.58 commands respect. No excuses necessary.

were you on the black fixed? (saturday RP)
i think i may have passed you going up sawyers? (skinny bloke on pale blue condor)

Yep, that was me

I need to get more practice in on hills but I had a fencing competition on Sunday so had to not overdo it.

So should we organise a tootle round Richmond park on a Saturday morning?

@ dancing james,
pretty sure RPM is going to start organising laps of richmond park on saturday mornings, he's got a thread up on it somewhere, last point we got to was discussing start times. you coming out to south beers, if so we can discuss then...

busy tonight but count me in for laps of the park.

@ dancing james,
pretty sure RPM is going to start organising laps of richmond park on saturday mornings, he's got a thread up on it somewhere, last point we got to was discussing start times. you coming out to south beers, if so we can discuss then...