Trying to keep up with my friends on road bikes

alansmurphy wrote:

I'm also of the camp that doesn't put too much weight on the 53/11 gearing. How much of our cycling life do we spend spinning out, i'd suggest not much. Having closer ratios in the middle of the cog and the more comfortable climbing gears will be much more efficient over a reasonably long ride...

I don't think this argument stacks up, at least in my experience.  Let's go back to the good old days when all you had to choose was a standard or compact chainset, say 10 years ago! Whilst you have to be pretty far up the ability ladder to spin out a 53/11 regularly, a 50/11 is much easier to run out of gears with.  I'm not talking about screaming down a 20% slope at over 50 mph, I'm talking about maybe a 5% slope with a bit of tail wind.  Or a gentler slope but riding in a bunch; whenever I have ridden a compact I have been frustrated by running out of gears at speed more often than running out of gears climbing.  

I think the OP's question might be redundant though.  My cycling buddies all have road bikes, cx bikes and mtbs.  I don't have a cx, just a road bike and an mtb; I now won't go with them when they take the cx bikes out, because I have to take the mtb and I know I won't be able to keep up.  I'll try for 60 minutes or maybe 90, but at some point the greater effort required to move the mtb on a road or smooth off road trail will wear me out before them. It's a good challenge and workout initially but eventually you get tired.  I haven't tried the comparison of road bikes v cx bikes but I bet the road bike will require less effort than the cx bike for the same distance covered.

Road bikes are optimised to go fast on roads, they are (just) strong enough to take most potholes whilst being light, the tyres are just grippy enough in most conditions to keep you upright, whilst being light, the brakes are good enough to stop you whilst being light.  The gears are chosen to give you a compromise between getting up steep hills and maintaining a good average speed on the flat.  

MTBs are optimised for off roading, they aren't as light, the brakes are stronger, you sit in a different position, the wheels and tyres are heavier, wider, grippier.  The gears are much more biased to climbing in situations where you could have a lot less grip than a road bike.

CX/gravel/adventure bikes are a compromise between the two above. They can mix some road riding and some gravel riding, but at the extremes of either they just won't be as good.

CXR94Di2 wrote:

Once over 30mph on a descent, you're in comfortable freewheeling territory" - no you're not on a 3% descent. eg Gorge de la Nesque, 15km @ 2,5% average. If I had a higher gear than 52/11 I'd use it.

Ive ridden Gorge de la Nesque both ways.  The desecnt is not super fast because of lots of blind bends, until the latter part where it staightens outs a bit. 

La  Nesque is my back yard. From the viewpoint on the North side, travelling West down to Auzon, there are only a couple of blind bends, for much of the route you can see the road snaking down the valley ahead of you. The South side is more twisty.

Notwisthstanding that, your comment "once over 30mph on a descent, you're in comfortable freewheeling territory" doesn't make sense on long shallow gradients.  If you can generate power through the crank at 110 rpm, that's fine. I can't.  

Griff500 wrote:

CXR94Di2 wrote:

Once over 30mph on a descent, you're in comfortable freewheeling territory" - no you're not on a 3% descent. eg Gorge de la Nesque, 15km @ 2,5% average. If I had a higher gear than 52/11 I'd use it.

Ive ridden Gorge de la Nesque both ways.  The desecnt is not super fast because of lots of blind bends, until the latter part where it staightens outs a bit. 

La  Nesque is my back yard. From the viewpoint on the North side, travelling West down to Auzon, there are only a couple of blind bends, for much of the route you can see the road snaking down the valley ahead of you. The South side is more twisty.

Notwisthstanding that, your comment "once over 30mph on a descent, you're in comfortable freewheeling territory" doesn't make sense on long shallow gradients.  If you can generate power through the crank at 110 rpm, that's fine. I can't.  

Just checked my Gorge descent, the first 2 or 3 miles I hardly pedalled lots of zero cadence and average nearly 26 mph. I peaked at 35 mph @110rpm later on with  a 42t chainring.  I came in top 20% on Strava without even really trying.  It's worth saying again most folk dont need 48 or above chainrings.  Unless you are chasing KOM segments or racing, most folks are happy to top out less than 40 mph 

The faster guys in my group were 2 mins ahead 2mph average faster and came in the top 5% of descent, but we're riding very aggressively at pace into blind bends right from the start of the descent.  Whilst I arrived a little more safely

Huckfinn wrote:

 

@Griff500: I'm almost your age. (Where do you live exactly..? I'm in Beausoleil)

The Luberon. (A long way from you)

CXR94Di2 wrote:

 or anything less than 50-34 front, and you aint going to keep up with your friends on road bikes as you put it. 

How fast do you think he needs to go.  Once over 30mph on a descent, you're in comfortable freewheeling territory. If you want to push the speed along then, 100 rpm on a 48-11 is 35mph, remember freewheeling

Presumably fast enough to keep up with his mates. All I can do is speak from experience. Granted, I am a below average cadence rider, being much happier grinding up a hill at 75rpm than at 100. My area (The Vaucluse), is characterised by long grinding ascents followed by long sweeping descents. Despite my age (60), I set upper quartile Strava times on those long climbs and wait for my mates at the top, and lower quartile times on descents where we are all spinning out and they wait for me at the bottom! "Once over 30mph on a descent, you're in comfortable freewheeling territory" - no you're not on a 3% descent. eg Gorge de la Nesque, 15km @ 2,5% average. If I had a higher gear than 52/11 I'd use it.