Hybrids better for hills?

[nikkoblu2]

I've been riding my Trek 7.3 hybrid for about two years. I did about 750 miles this summer generally averaging 30-50 mile rides at about 13-14mph. The bike has 24 gears and I've come a long way learning how to make the most of my gears when climbing hills. I never really use the largest ring in the front (my cruising ring), so I'm really using 16 gears. I've learned through trial and error how not to pop the chain by downloading BEFORE I get to the hill.

Fast forward to this past weekend...my LBS keeps suggesting that I'm really ready for a road bike if I'm regularly riding 50 miles at a clip and would like to speed up my pace a little. So, this weekend I spent about two hours riding road bikes. I chose a 2010 Cannondale Synapse Carbon road bike. That's about as technical as I get.

It has a compact cassette in front - so there's only two rings instead of three. I figured that wouldn't be an issue since I'm used to only using two rings and the owner at the shop said there's only a 2% difference. To get to the meat of my question - I think my hybrid was much more of a billy goat climber than the new road bike. When I drop down to the lowest gear - the one where I can spin the fastest - there's no doubt my spin was easier on the hybrid. The hills - rolling, not mountainous - I rode this weekend were not as easy as they should have been for me. I'm wondering if I'm going to have a problem when I get to the serious hills.

I think the smallest ring on the front of the road bike is larger than the smallest ring on the front of the hybrid - do you think that would be the issue and I'll just need to compensate with stronger legs? I'm thinking I'll go for clipless in the Spring and that will make hills easier, but I want to get a really good feel for the bike before I do that.

[Biciclista]

I can't do the math for you, but I think you should trust your instincts. go back and tell the guy you want a triple! Hills in NJ can be tough.
Since you already said you never use the largest ring on your bike, you don't want a new bike that has no low end gears.

[Cataboo]

Did you tell him you never use the big chain ring on your trek fx? Because if you did, selling you a compact double doesn't make too much sense.



Your trek fx should have something like a 48/38/28 crank ring up front with an 11-32 cassette in the back.

Your cannondale is probably a 50/34 up front with an 12-26 in the back, from what I can tell.

So your smallest chain ring up front on the trek is a 28 tooth ring - the smallest one on the cannondale is a 34 tooth ring. YOu used to hang out on 38 and 28 tooth rings on the trek, and you've only got a 50 & a 34 tooth ring on the cannondale.

In the back, the opposite is true - the bigger the cog or the # of teeth, the easier it is to get up hills - your trek fx has a 32 tooth cog in the back. The largest cog your cannondale has is a 26 tooth ring. So you've lost a lot of gears both up front and in the back with the switch.



You can go to sheldon brown's gear calculator and actually work out the numbers, but that is waaaay more than a 2% change in gearing that he sold you. You're actually going to have a hard time matching the gearing you have on the trek fx on a standard road bike. But a road bike is a lot more effecient, so shouldn't need quite so much gears. And yeah, your legs should get stronger. You might want to look at a touring type style bike.

But definitely, go back and get a triple. Hopefully your bike shop will let you exchange. Whatever triple you get, you might want to see if they can swap an 11-28 or bigger cassette onto the back for you.

[OakLeaf]

I'd be surprised if your compact was truly geared only 2% taller than your hybrid triple. That would be unusual. But there's no way for us to know if you yourself don't know what the gearing is on either bike.

It's possible you can achieve the same low gear by swapping out the cassette, but depending on how big your largest cog is now, you may need a different rear derailleur to do that.

Which model Synapse? What year Trek? We might be able to look up the specs...

[nikkoblu2]

Wow...lots of information here. I wish I had some information to give back. If memory serves correct the Trek is a 2007. But, I really don't know what model the Synapse is.

I'll go into the bike shop this weekend - the owner, a woman who started the shop 40 years ago, has been good to work with so I can only hope that will continue.

Do you think it would be an option to put a 3-ring on the Synapse? Or is there something about the frame of the bike that makes it designed to only accomodate a double?

[Cataboo]

Changing the synapse to a triple probably requires new shifters, new crankset, new front derailleur, and possibly a new rear derailleur.

It can be done, but it'd be an expensive switch.

If you want to tell us exactly what's on either bike - when you go home tonight, you can either count the number of teeth on each bike up front or in the back (really, you just want to know how many teeth the biggest cog in the back has, and how many teeth the smallest chain ring in the front has. ) Probably what I guessed they were in my post up there is right or pretty close to it - and if that's the case, there's no way in heck that's a 2% difference in gearing. And even if you changed the rear cassette in the back to an 11-32 or an 11-34, you'd probably still be missing gears - but that may be enough to make it ridable for you.

[nscrbug]

Why not just check out some bikes that already come built as a triple? The Giant Avail 3 comes in a triple, as does the Specialized Dolce and Ruby Comp. For Trek models, the new Lexa and Madone 4.5 and 5.2 are all available in a triple.