Attention Equipment Geeks! I have a rear cassette question

[SadieKate]

Hey Surly and SadieKate... do you guys have a triple in the front? I'm concerned that if I get a 34 with my 30 in the front, I'll be spinning out if I'm in both my littlest gears.

My Litespeed (which I brought to San Anselmo) is my "flatland" bike. I can ride it in hills but would have a very difficult time riding something like Diablo. I could probably make it to the base of the 17% grade but it would be painful. The granny gear is a 30 and the cassette has a 26. Sometimes I swap to a 28 when I think I might need a "safety" gear for the unexpected - like the aptly named "Happy Valley Rd" on the TopHat Classic.

My new Kelly Bonestock which I built for riding the gonzo hills included in the TE Girl's Hill Training Program has a 26 granny gear and a 34 cassette. I only need that lowest gear for the top of Diablo or when riding at high elevation where there seems to be a lack of oxygen. The crankset has a gearing of 48, 36, 26 which means I have several selections for low gearing. It's not just the 34 cog, it is the 2 or 3 next smaller ones in combo with the 26 granny which make the biggest difference for me so I can maintain a nice cadence before I ever hit the really, really steep stuff when the 34 is necessary.

Having had 4 operations for acute and chronic chondromalacia (softening of the patella cartilage), I am acutely aware of knee pain that can keep me off the bike. I also think people need to really examine the "one-size fits all" approach to gears sold on most roadbikes and evaluate it for the terrain on which they ride, their own fitness levels, knee issues, etc. Last I checked, neither we nor our home riding terrain is "one-size."

You and Santa should visit www.sheldonbrown.com and his gearing calculator. Put in the various crank ring and cassette options you're thinking about and look at the gear inches. You'll see how all this works.

[slinkedog]

Thanks to all of your for all of the info. SK, I think you're right in that not all of us are going to be at our best in the stock gearing that comes on the bike from the shop. Now I just have to get Blaine convinced that I need some more gears. He's all for a 27, but doesn't think I'll need much more than that. Maybe I don't. I don't know. My knees do get painful sometimes, but I've never had serious problems with them. But I'm sure getting older ain't gonna help the situation much!!

[bikerz]

I'll chime in with SK's post - I swapped my front chainrings from 52-42-30 to 48-38-24, and it made a huge difference. Then after the Mt. D ride with the TE gals, where I still felt I was grinding up the steep parts, I thought about getting a mountain rear casette as well. So now I have an 11-34 Sram cassette on the rear instead of the 12-25 cassette the bike came with, and it's great. For one thing, the 11 gives me a higher gear than I had before, which is nice going down hills, and the super-granny is really a great spin gear. In fact, on my last ride with hills, I was 2 or 3 gears above the super-granny much of the time on the hills, but it was nice to know those gears were there!

The only thing I have noticed is that sometimes, because there is a greater tooth dfference between rear cogs now, I sometimes feel like one gear is "too easy" and the next is "too hard". I know as I get stronger this will change, so I think it's ok for now. The other thing is I do need to attend just a little more when I shft into the lower rear gears because of the distance between cogs. But the new rear derailleur is better than my old one, so overall the shifting feels easier and smoother.

Finally, I am keeping all the old chainrings and other bits and pieces, so if I ever get to the point where I feel like I can drop some of those granny gears (that will be a happy day!), it's not a big deal to swap them back.