Author Archives: jeff

Bicycle Gearing for Normal Humans

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I signed up for a gran fondo this summer that will have more climbing over 100 miles than I’ve ever done on a ride. I’m seriously concerned that I might not make it to the end, given the number of cat 1 and HC efforts required. So I decided to see if I could do something about the gearing on my bicycle. I have a OneNote page filled with interesting thoughts and links to products that might support this effort, but where I landed I think makes better general sense than what’s on most road bicycles today. So let’s start there.

The gearing on most road bikes today follows the Shimano pattern of 50/34 chain rings with cassettes ranging from 11-28 to 11-34. From a climbing perspective, your most powerful ratio is 1:1 (34/34). At the top end, you have the 50/11 combination. So what’s wrong with this? Originally, I had my triathlon bike and my road bikes configured this way (tri-bike 50/34 and 11-30, red road bike 50/34 with 11-28 and yellow road bike with 50/34 and 11-30). What I observed is that when I’m “on the flat” (which is never truly flat), I’m operating at barely in the middle of the cassette when I’m in the large chain ring and rarely do I ever use the small cassette cogs.

I always joke that the cleanest cog in my cassette is the 11T cog. Maybe I’m just not a fearless enough descender to really take advantage of it, but frankly having it is a waste. And the jumps between the cogs when I’m in the big chain ring are so large I find myself constantly struggling with a gear selection that’s a little too easy or a little too hard. So after a bunch of research, I’ve changed the gearing on one of my road bikes to see if it improved things.

I’ve updated my yellow road bike with FSA K-Force Light 46/30 cranks paired with an 11-34 cassette. The first question everyone will ask is – what did I lose by going with such a small set of chain rings? Only one thing – the equivalent of the 50/11 combo. The gear ratio of 50/11 is 4.55. The gear ratio of the 46/11 is 4.18, essentially the same as a 50/12 combination. It turns out that an 11-34 cassette jumps from an 11 to a 13 (there is no 12 on most of them), so the sacrifice is really small. But the benefit from the smaller 46T chain ring is that all of the gear ratios are closer making it easier to find the optimal gear to be in. For an 50T chain ring, the ratios for the top cogs are 4.55 to 3.85 to 3.33 to 2.94 to 2.63. With a 46T chain ring, the ratios are 4.18 to 3.54 to 3.07 to 2.71 to 2.43. While the numbers don’t look to dramatically different, the jumps are smaller with a smaller chain ring (the numerator is smaller) leading to a better road feel when trying to get into the ideal gear. With this setup, I find it easier to hit my power targets while spinning at a comfortable cadence.

On the climbing side, there’s the addition of a the 30/34 combination for a 0.88 climbing ratio. On an 11-34 cassette, the next cog up is a 30T, which is 1.0. The smaller chain ring leads to closer gear ratios for climbing as well, so instead of a jump from 1.0 to 1.13 to 1.26, I’m jumping from 0.88 to 1.0 to 1.11 to 1.2. Everything is tighter and better. And the extra climbing gear is great for when the grades go over 10%. Last weekend I did a ride with some unexpected climbing and plowed my way up a 10% hill with a crescendo of 13% at the finish. The gearing really helped and I wasn’t trashed at the top. Similarly, I did a really nice 60 mile ride yesterday with rolling hills and I never used the small chain ring until near the end where there was an actual climb. The entire ride felt strong.

So, in a sense, I’ve traded the 50/11 for a 30/34 but I actually think I got a whole lot more. I’m way more comfortable pedaling now and not finding myself stuck between too easy and too hard. Given my cycling strength (probably average for a dude my age), it’s not clear to me why Shimano persists in putting gearing on bikes that’s really not well suited for most riders. Strong riders will always find ways to move up but average riders will usually just stick with what they bought and be miserable. I think they are making the wrong choices here. SRAM is doing a better job with this – they are offering a wider variety of chain rings and cassettes, targeting their 46/33 chain rings and 10-33 cassette (12-speed) for someone like me. The new Roubaix Comp is equipped with SRAM 46/33 and a 10-36 cassette, which makes it similar to my bike, although I’m not sure why they decided 33 was a better number than 30 for their small chain ring.

As I continue to tinker, I may opt to go with an 11-36 cassette instead of the 11-34. The Shimano R8050-GS derailleur capacity is 37T, so a 46/30 and 11-34 cassette is 16 + 23 = 39T, so I’m already a little over spec but it’s working just fine. I actually think the capacity is incorrectly stated on the Shimano site since they indicate support for 11-34 cassette with this derailleur and they only offer cranks with a 16T delta. Wolf Tooth offers a derailleur extender to allow me to move to an 11-36 cassette. I’m a little concerned about pushing the derailleur capacity but I might give it a try since it’s an inexpensive change. The 11-36 cassette doesn’t match up exactly with the 11-34 so I’ll have to decide if I like the ratios I currently have:

11-36t: 11-12-13-15-17-19-   22-   25-   28-   32-   36
11-34t: 11-   13-15-17-19-21-   23-25-27-   30-   34

But two sub-1.0 ratio climbing gears might be nice.

WIth my success here, I may also move my tri-bike to the same gearing, again driving for the same benefits I’m seeing on my road bike. I’ve already ordered the cranks for the red road bike and can’t wait to get it set up. To circle back, for the normal humans that are reading this, I encourage you to consider this setup as I think you’ll ultimately be a happier and more successful rider. Ride on!

Respectful Communications, Diverse Viewpoints, and Social Networks

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When Elon Musk bought Twitter, some of us hoped that he would have something brilliant to contribute to the problem of social networks that have become cesspools of hate speech, angry and mean comments, and collections of folks who just want to shout each other down. I’m still hopeful that Elon’s smarter than we are aware and actually has something to contribute here, but I’ve become more and more despondent about the possibility of actual change.

I’ve been using social networking since it exists. Page through this blog and you’ll see that I’m one of the early adopters of what are now the major social networking platforms and a few that didn’t make it. I tend to join the new ones when they surface as well (Mastadon, Post.News, Substack, etc.) just to see what they have that the others don’t.

So far I’m just disappointed. Unfortunately, when Peter Steiner drew the above cartoon in 1993, he was spot on.

My first significant experiences with social communications on the Internet was via USENET. I participated in a bunch of different newsgroup and was amazed at the diversity of topics and membership. I recall being particular enamored with the groups discussing Jewish topics – Torah, Jewish law, etc. I pointed these groups out to Jack Moline, the rabbi of our synagogue (and someone now quite well known), who played around in them for a while. Eventually he came back to me and said that he wasn’t going to continue reading or commenting in the newsgroups because the discourse always ended up being disrespectful and impolite.

There’s something significant lost when we “talk” online. We say things that we wouldn’t ordinarily say to someone’s face. And, often, we can take comfort in anonymity and distance when making distasteful remarks. As Steiner pointed out, nobody knows you’re a dog on the Internet.

That’s Twitter today. I don’t have any solutions to this problem but it is “the problem” to solve if we expect Twitter to be useful as a place to share ideas and have thoughtful discussions and conversations. Maybe we need something like “stakes” – things that are at personal risk which penalize bad behavior. In the real world, this is your face, your identity, your job, your home – you don’t say or do things that create risk for these things. Platform content moderation doesn’t quite do this; maybe it’s just better community reputation building (like Stack Overflow). But something needs to change unless we just want these platforms to be just like Speakers? Corner in Hyde Park – a place where someone can say whatever they want, without repercussion, in a place where no one really wants to listen.

PS. As a side note, I started looking at who is writing on post.news. I searched for topics that are interesting to me, looked at the posts, and then had to spend some time figuring out who the posters were. It’d sure be nice to have those “stakes” I mentioned readily available so I can evaluate the poster not just on the immediate comment they are making but also on their history and agenda.

Water For Long Bicycle Rides

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Someone on Reddit asked about how to secure a bike while stopping to refill water which reminded me of similar problem I face when riding in Hawaii – there is just no water to refill with on some of my routes. This happens in particular with long gravel rides, but there are areas I ride which just don’t have convenience stores or gas stations – so what is one to do?

I carry an Ottolock, which is super lightweight and enough of a deterrent to prevent some kid from running off with my bike. Before someone shouts me down about these locks, note that it’s only a deterrent. A dedicated bike thief will cut right through it but for a quick water stop, I’m more concerned about some kid doing a grab and go. If you are primarily out for the ride (versus intending to stop and have coffee or eat lunch or something), a deterrent lock should be just fine.

If there’s no place to lock it up, I often bring the bike into the store with me (like a gas station or convenience store) – no one has ever complained.

As I mentioned, where I ride I often have a different problem – no shops or water anywhere for longer rides. I just recently added a saddle cage holder to my road bike so I can carry a total of 4 bottles with me for those rides. This one in particular is pretty inexpensive, mounted easily, and left plenty of room for a saddle bag. Carrying more bottles adds weight to the ride, but this allows me to do much longer rides in places where refilling water bottles just isn’t an option. If you’ve never used a saddle cage holder, be sure to get a good bottle holder (I can’t remember what I have, but it looks something like the profile design holder). If you use a bottle cage that isn’t a “complete loop” around the bottle, the bottles will go flying when you go over bumps. You can also add a strap to the bottles to hold them in since you’ll likely stop anyway to move the bottles around on your bike. I like this configuration a lot better than using a camelback or similar.

What Distance Is A Good Starter Triathlon?

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I’ve often see prospective triathletes ask about what distance they ought to pursue for their first event. Most of the time the question is tied to concerns about the swim; everyone can sort of imagine that they will be able to bike and run (or walk) but the swim always seems daunting. The reason it’s daunting is because most swimmers don’t ever do distances like those in a triathlon. if you watch the Olympics, most of the races are far shorter. And if you’ve goofed around with your buddies in the pool, you probably didn’t race more than a length or two. So it’s hard to imagine a long swim.

Nonetheless, my answer to this question is almost always Olympic.

I was in a similar place with the swim when I did my first triathlon (it had been many years since I was really in the water and I never was a swimmer). 6 months is plenty of time to get accustomed to the distance and to get some open water practice in as well so you know what it’s like when it’s time to race.

Funny story – when my older daughter decided to do a half-IM, she jumped in the swimming pool and swam like a fish. When she was in elementary school, she was on the community swim team. That experience left her with swimming “muscle memory” and, even though she wasn’t a top swimmer as a kid and hadn’t been swimming in ages, it came right back and she was easily outpacing me.

Olympic is a good distance to start with because it’s long enough that you’ll be serious about training and it’s an endurance distance which means you’ll focus on moderating your energy throughout the event. I’d only recommend sprint triathlons to those athletes who aren’t looking for endurance events; most of the folks who ask this question, though, are endurance athletes.

While this isn’t a totally fair comparison, I tend to think of sprint vs. olympic the same way I’d think of a 100m dash vs a half-marathon. Sprint triathlons are not “starter” triathlons – they are short distances meant to be done hard and fast, kind of like a 100m dash. Olympic distances are long enough (especially for age group athletes) to become endurance events and your training will reflect that. FWIW, I’m not a “sprint” kind of athlete, so I’ve only done Olympic and longer distances.

Given my lack of real athletic talent, I think that triathlon is mostly about commitment to training. If you are willing to commit to train, the Olympic race should be a great place to start and you’ll feel a real sense of accomplishment when you finish.