50-11t ratio not enough?

lostandgone · Apr 24, 2010

Hello
I currently have a 2010 Felt z85 road bike with a FSA compact crankset (50-34t) and shimano 105 rear sprocket (11-25). After a couple months of riding I have come to believe that the "hardest" (not sure what the correct terminology is for this) gear, 50 up front and 11 in the back is not enough for me. I am consistently riding in this gear majority of the time except on hills of significant grades (of which there aren't a significant amount where i am from). I am concerned because i feel like i could be easily going with a "harder" gear.

Would a move to a 53-39t crankset help alleviate this problem? What gearing on this setup with this crankset would be equal to the 50/11 gear that i am currently maxed out at. I have been monkeying around with the sheldon brown gear ratio selector thing, but i am not sure I have the proficiency and knowledge to know exactly what i am looking at.

Any other recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

cwg_at_opc · Apr 24, 2010

if you're willing to experiment, you can replace the chainrings of your 110BCD crank with 52t outer and 36t inner rings(or even something in the 40s!), keeping your cassette:

http://www.universalcycles.com/shopping/product_details.php?id=5617&category=2628

this way you're only out about 60-70 bucks.

if you find that that too is too easy, then you are very strong and could consider a new crankset with 130BCD - then you have more options, 53, 54, and 55t outer rings(these are typically for Time Trials/Triathlons)

SystemShock · Apr 24, 2010

lostandgone said:
Hello
I currently have a 2010 Felt z85 road bike with a FSA compact crankset (50-34t) and shimano 105 rear sprocket (11-25).

After a couple months of riding I have come to believe that the "hardest" (not sure what the correct terminology is for this) gear, 50 up front and 11 in the back is not enough for me. I am consistently riding in this gear majority of the time except on hills of significant grades (of which there aren't a significant amount where i am from). I am concerned because i feel like i could be easily going with a "harder" gear.

Hmm... either your normal cadence is 50, or you should be saying hi to Alberto Contador, since you'll be his teammate soon. :idea:
.

jeff262 · Apr 24, 2010

A cadence of 90 (average for most people) gets you 32mph with 50/11 (34mph with a 53). Unless you spend most of your time riding downhill or with a tailwind something seems wrong here. If you are spending large amounts of time in this combination you either have a very low cadence (as SystemShock mentioned) or you should quit your day job and head to France in July.

RussellS · Apr 24, 2010

cwg_at_opc said:
if you're willing to experiment, you can replace the chainrings of your 110BCD crank with 52t outer and 36t inner rings(or even something in the 40s!), keeping your cassette:

if you find that that too is too easy, then you are very strong and could consider a new crankset with 130BCD - then you have more options, 53, 54, and 55t outer rings(these are typically for Time Trials/Triathlons)

http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/chainrings.asp

TA makes about every size chainring in 110mm bcd.

Mike T. · Apr 24, 2010

jeff262 said:
A cadence of 90 (average for most people) gets you 32mph with 50/11 (34mph with a 53). Unless you spend most of your time riding downhill or with a tailwind something seems wrong here. If you are spending large amounts of time in this combination you either have a very low cadence (as SystemShock mentioned) or you should quit your day job and head to France in July.

My thoughts exactly. I'm doing 30 - 35mph in my 50/14 high gear. If I need to go faster I freewheel and hide behind my stem.

SwiftSolo · Apr 24, 2010

lostandgone said:
Hello
I currently have a 2010 Felt z85 road bike with a FSA compact crankset (50-34t) and shimano 105 rear sprocket (11-25). After a couple months of riding I have come to believe that the "hardest" (not sure what the correct terminology is for this) gear, 50 up front and 11 in the back is not enough for me. I am consistently riding in this gear majority of the time except on hills of significant grades (of which there aren't a significant amount where i am from). I am concerned because i feel like i could be easily going with a "harder" gear.

Would a move to a 53-39t crankset help alleviate this problem? What gearing on this setup with this crankset would be equal to the 50/11 gear that i am currently maxed out at. I have been monkeying around with the sheldon brown gear ratio selector thing, but i am not sure I have the proficiency and knowledge to know exactly what i am looking at.

Any other recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Mate, you likely need to work on your cadence. The only time you should "spin out" with a 50/11 is on the down hills and in most cases it would be better to tuck and coast when that happens.

If I'm wrong about your cadence, you might want to look at getting on a professional team or, better yet, starting your own.

lostandgone · Apr 24, 2010

thank you all for the responses.

I definitely have a strong leg bias. I'm built kind of like a T-rex with tiny arms and huge legs.

Regarding the cadence - I have always preferred slightly slower, but harder pedaling over faster and easier pedaling. that being said, I a super rough guesstimate would put my cadence around 70 rpms or so. So I am pushing mid twenties (i.e. often 24-26mph) on flat land in the 50/11.

Is there any real disavantage with going with a 53/39 up front?

cjd · Apr 24, 2010

What is the typical duration of your rides? 30 minutes? 1 hour? I'm just curious as to how long you can mash this gearing.

If you've only been riding a couple months, I don't know that I would be in a big hurry to make a change. I might recommend buying a bike computer, so that you could actually see what your cadence and speed are. If after a couple more months you have discovered that your cadence has improved and you are truly spinning 50x11 at 85-90rpm, then buy the bigger chain rings.

labmonkey526 · Apr 24, 2010

lostandgone said:
thank you all for the responses.

I definitely have a strong leg bias. I'm built kind of like a T-rex with tiny arms and huge legs.

Regarding the cadence - I have always preferred slightly slower, but harder pedaling over faster and easier pedaling. that being said, I a super rough guesstimate would put my cadence around 70 rpms or so. So I am pushing mid twenties (i.e. often 24-26mph) on flat land in the 50/11.

Is there any real disavantage with going with a 53/39 up front?

Yeah there is a real disadvantage to your knees to push 50x11@70rpms. You don't need new cranks you need some cadence training.

wim · Apr 24, 2010

Some thoughts.

lostandgone said:
Is there any real disavantage with going with a 53/39 up front?

There's no disadvantage to a 53/39 up front—it's been the standard crank for many years now and has served recreational riders, amateur racers and pro racers well. If you do the math, you'll see that the difference isn't all that great. Assuming your preferred cadence of 70 rpm as a constant:

50 x 11 @ 70 rpm = 25 mph, and,
53 x 11 @ 70 rpm = 26.5 mph.

As you can see, you'd gain 1.5 mph with the 53 over the 50. But you can achieve that same gain with your current crank by just increasing cadence a bit:

50 x 11 @ 75 rpm = 26.9 mph.

The main benefit of higher cadences is the fact that it enables a rider to ride longer at a certain speed because, simply put, it saves muscle fuel. Even a pro would have a hard time surviving 5 hours in the saddle at race speeds pushing a cadence of only 70 rpm. But if you're not doing long rides, so what—nothing wrong with low cadences for the duration of a 40 km time-trial, for example.

I think the admonitions about your knees need to be taken with a grain of salt. While many riders do have a limited tolerance for high pedal forces, many others do well with pushing big gears at low cadences. It might even be a matter of the self-fulfilling prophecy: riders who never push big gears at low cadences will never strengthen their connective tissues and stabilizing muscles and, in fact, will suffer injury if they try to ride with such high pedal forces.

Pirx · Apr 24, 2010

lostandgone said:
Regarding the cadence - I have always preferred slightly slower, but harder pedaling over faster and easier pedaling. that being said, I a super rough guesstimate would put my cadence around 70 rpms or so. So I am pushing mid twenties (i.e. often 24-26mph) on flat land in the 50/11.

As others have said, forget about the crankset. You absolutely need to work on your cadence. 70s is far too low for an average, and more typical of the complete newbie rider. Such a low cadence will seriously crimp your performance on anything but very short rides, and in the long run you'll ruin your knees, too.

Pirx · Apr 24, 2010

wim said:
nothing wrong with low cadences for the duration of a 40 km time-trial, for example.

I have never, ever, seen anybody do well on such a low cadence for a one-hour time trial. Some of the time trial specialists have huge legs as well, but that doesn't mean they would be stupid enough to not go for the efficiency advantages of the higher cadence. If you're riding at a 70rpm cadence, you are doing it wrong, period, end of sentence.

ph0enix · Apr 24, 2010

SystemShock said:
Hmm... either your normal cadence is 50, or you should be saying hi to Alberto Contador, since you'll be his teammate soon. :idea:
.

Seriously! 50/11 gives you a higher top end than 53/12. I can't even imagine using the highest gear on my bike at 90-100RPM for more than a minute or two except when going downhill. For some reason I don't think gear ratio is the OP's problem.

Peanya · Apr 24, 2010

Pirx said:
If you're riding at a 70rpm cadence, you are doing it wrong, period, end of sentence.

No, you're wrong. It's when you blow out your knee and have to get surgery to walk, is when you truly realize.

lostandgone · Apr 24, 2010

Thank you all for your responses. This is very interesting and informative. I appreciate the insights regarding the concerns around lower cadence. And yes I am definitely a newbie regarding cycling just getting into it in december.

Maybe I previously overestimated the amount that I ride in 50/11 (and thus underestimating my cadence assumptions based on speed), but I do feel that I spend significant time in that gear when I could use a little more oomph. I do feel my strong legs are better at peddling harder than faster.

My rides are usually 1.5-4 hours. Obviously I don't ride in 50/11 all the time, but I just tested it out this morning and I was anywhere between 50/11 - 50/13 about 85% of the time (not in these gears on large hills). In the 50/11 gear, I stayed around 27-29mph which would put my cadence at or just under 80rpm. I obviously need to pick up a cadence monitor to investigate this further. Just about everyone I ride with seems to have a hard time keeping up with the pace i set on the overall rides.

wim · Apr 24, 2010

Pirx said:
I have never, ever, seen anybody do well on such a low cadence for a one-hour time trial. Some of the time trial specialists have huge legs as well, but that doesn't mean they would be stupid enough to not go for the efficiency advantages of the higher cadence. If you're riding at a 70rpm cadence, you are doing it wrong, period, end of sentence.

Agree, virtually no trained cyclist does well with such a low cadence on a one-hour time trial. But if you stay within the context of this thread, there is nothing wrong at all with the low-cadence, high-force riding the OP prefers for his rides. I think it's clear that he's not a trained cyclist, or he wouldn't ride at such a low cadence. And if we can believe the numbers, he and his knees are doing doing quite well. Could he be faster at a higher cadence? Of course he could. But that requires long-term training and adaptation—something the OP doesn't seem to be interested in all that much.

SystemShock · Apr 24, 2010

lostandgone said:
My rides are usually 1.5-4 hours. Obviously I don't ride in 50/11 all the time, but I just tested it out this morning and I was anywhere between 50/11 - 50/13 about 85% of the time (not in these gears on large hills). In the 50/11 gear, I stayed around 27-29mph which would put my cadence at or just under 80rpm. I obviously need to pick up a cadence monitor to investigate this further. Just about everyone I ride with seems to have a hard time keeping up with the pace i set on the overall rides.

If 27-29 mph really is fairly routine for you outside of a paceline, and after only a couple of months in the sport, then I think you're headin' to the pros, son. Or at least Cat 1-2. :thumbsup:

And yeah, good cadence on the flats seems to be in the 80-100 range, dependin' on whether you're a spinner, masher, or somewhere in-between.
.

ph0enix · Apr 25, 2010

lostandgone said:
Thank you all for your responses. This is very interesting and informative. I appreciate the insights regarding the concerns around lower cadence. And yes I am definitely a newbie regarding cycling just getting into it in december.

Maybe I previously overestimated the amount that I ride in 50/11 (and thus underestimating my cadence assumptions based on speed), but I do feel that I spend significant time in that gear when I could use a little more oomph. I do feel my strong legs are better at peddling harder than faster.

My rides are usually 1.5-4 hours. Obviously I don't ride in 50/11 all the time, but I just tested it out this morning and I was anywhere between 50/11 - 50/13 about 85% of the time (not in these gears on large hills). In the 50/11 gear, I stayed around 27-29mph which would put my cadence at or just under 80rpm. I obviously need to pick up a cadence monitor to investigate this further. Just about everyone I ride with seems to have a hard time keeping up with the pace i set on the overall rides.

What's your average speed (usually) on a 4hr ride? Based on what you're saying you just might be extremely gifted in terms of cycling and you should definitely try racing. I still think you'd benefit from higher cadence.

Reynolds531 · Apr 25, 2010

I'm getting an Aarontoy feel about this thread. Newbie maintains 28 mph solo for 1.5 to 4 hours?

50-11t ratio not enough?

lostandgone

cwg_at_opc

SystemShock

jeff262

RussellS

Mike T.

SwiftSolo

lostandgone

cjd

labmonkey526

wim

Pirx

Pirx

ph0enix

Peanya

lostandgone

wim

SystemShock

ph0enix

Reynolds531

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