Big Bill McBeef swept me up once again this morning and dragged me out to the Air Force Academy for a chilly group ride, and this time I remembered to bring some ID, more’s the pity. The AFA is a hilly place that once hosted the world road championships, and as a consequence I spent more time dangling off the back than a dingleberry on a fat dog’s ass.
Oh, the shame. I had a 39×25 … and I used it. Me, the guy who climbed everything in the 19 back in the day, a day that like me is very far back indeed in 2010.
Happily, I was able to catch my breath at the periodic ID checks. There were three of them — one at the south gate, another just short of the B-52, and a third on the backstretch by the visitors’ center — so I had a couple moments to suck it up and pretend that I wasn’t really about to blow partially digested oatmeal all over my new Ritchey stem and fork.
And despite my suffering, it really was a good thing that I’d remembered my driver’s license. Several of our number had not, and one of them was caught between checkpoints, with no way to get past the guards to his car.
For all I know Bob may still be there, oscillating back and forth between coppers like a tennis ball between the Williams sisters. No wonder the guy climbs like a meth-addled monkey.
Mad Blog Media 
Hey, at least you are riding a 39 by 25. My hero! Some fat slobs who read your blog are now huffing and puffing over hill and dale with a compact crank.
Hey, K,
I may be joining my gravity-challenged brethren in the Compact Club if I can’t find my legs here shortly. I have a nifty Race Face compact crankset stashed in the garage … I was saving it for another project, but I hear it talking to me. Actually, it’s laughing at me.
I feel your pain. Well, not really, I’m just feeling my own right now. I got in three dozen kilometers today through the rolling farm terrain around here all the while struggling over handlebars which for reasons that have nothing to do with off season indulgences now feel five inches lower. I discovered while “climbing” one of those nondescript rollers that I don’t recall ever noticing before, that my shifter had actually broke…oh, wait, I was already in my bottom gear. Suck.
So now I have a glass of wine in front of me believe that it was actually Alpe d’Huez I climbed. Ain’t working. I guess much more wine is needed.
Wine is a wonderful thing in such circumstances. Meena found a nice Tempranillo that put me in a much better mood about my fitness…or lack thereof.
Dare I say ‘Triple’.
Oh but it’s a racing triple. Ain’t no such animal!
Pat: Someone once said: “If your bike weighs less than 20 pounds and you’re gettin’ dropped on the hills….it ain’t the bike!”
That said: Check out the info Sheldon Brown’s (R.I.P.) Bicycle Gear Calculator site provides for a 53/39 crank with a 12/25 cassette versus a more prudent (or should I say, less egotistical?)compact combo of 50/36 mated to an 11/28 cassette.
It’s only when our “seasoned, mature cyclist’s” — read Senior Birdman — age approaches the crank set teeth (53 vs. 50) that we start to realize that insulting our knees and cadence count can be quickly remedied by shifting smoothly to a compact!
Ah, vino … it levels the grades and elevates the performance, if only in the imagination.
O’Neill, if you ever put a triple on your bike (assuming you still have one), I’m getting you an aluminum walker for your next birthday, assuming you live that long.
And John D. … a 20-pound bike? Man, I got a 20-pound wheelset. I’m running wire-bead Continental Gatorskins — in 700×28 for the cush’ and flat protection — on a 16-year-old bike. My Subaru Forester is lighter than this thing, and it has heated seats, a CD player and a nifty driver’s-side pocket for my Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum in case some loudmouth tells me to watch my line. Plus it goes when you stomp once on a single pedal.
That said, I’ll check out the late, great Sheldon’s advice. I need all the help I can get if I’m gonna be chasing the skinny geezers through the high country. I want people laughing at me for the right reasons.
The 50-36 with an 11-28 might avoid the “growling” problems I have, i.e., the top pulley on the rear derailleur riding lightly and mumbling to itself on the 28 cog due to maxing out chain wrap and derailleur clearance. I’ve got that problem with an aftermarket IRD cassette on my Six-Thirteen as I am running a 50-34 in front and 12-28 in back; it slightly exceeds Campy’s maximum wrapup even though the system works on their 13-29 cassette. I could get rid of the noise by shortening the chain for better derailleur alignment, but at the risk of blowing the drivetrain up if I ever accidentally shift to 50-28.
Most of the time I don’t use that bailout gear (I treat it like a 9 spd. plus granny) so its not a big deal, but on those occasional killer rides (i.e., climbing our ski hill road or Bobcat Pass at the very end of the Red River Century), I can ignore the growling because my legs are complaining louder than the drivetrain.
I think one of the other aftermarket cassette manufacturers (American Classic?) makes an 11-27 Campy compatible which should work better but so far I’ve resisted the urge to buy one as the 11 tooth high gear seems silly at my age and ability, or lack thereof.
I run an 11-28 cassette with an FSA SLK compact crank shifted by new Ultegra 6700 with no problem. Very quiet and smooth. Me, not so quiet and smooth. I may be fat, but I’m slow, too. I wish I could do a mind wipe so I didn’t have to keep being reminded of “back in the day” when I could actually go uphill at a reasonable speed.
Khal: Growling problems? Then here ya go:
Khal, just yesterday I put a 9 speed XT 12-32 on a Surly Cross Check with a Shimano 105 drivetrain using the 105 triple rear derailleur. I (pretty much) eliminated the “growling” problem by taking the “B” screw out and threading it back in from the other side. This way you can cheat and make the B screw longer by using the side with the head against the frame, thus putting more distance between the top pulley and the 32t cassette. The chain length works out fine too, no danger or catastrophic failure due to accidental cross chaining. Give it a try.
On the subject of compact cranks: I fear a set is in my future. My knees seems to like the narrower Q factor of the compact crank as compared to a triple. Yea, that’s it. It has NOTHING at all to due with my aging, fragile ego, I swear.
Back to the wine. Oh look, I have beer too. Decisions, decisions…
Brethren,
I appreciate the tales of velo-woe. I’ve been riding something like the fabled compact setup for years — a parade of cyclo-cross bikes with 48/38 chainrings and 12-26 cassettes (or 46/34 with 13-28, or this, that or the other) — and since I ride ’cross bikes both on road and off, riding something out of the ordinary, testosterone-wise, has just come to feel natural to me. If memory serves (unlikely) I rocked a 175mm Ritchey 46/34 crankset and an XT 13-30 on a Voodoo Loa with a one-off Marzocchi suspension fork, so I clearly have no shame at all.
I don’t have any shifting issues in seven-, eight-, nine- or 10-speed with this gearing, and I rarely find myself needing the manly 53×12, lacking as I do a certain something in the quadriceps department. So unless I find some untapped reservoirs of manliness sometime this month, I’m gonna slap a compact crankset on the DBR and leave my 42×19 days dead and buried, right next to my silver medal in the 1991 New Mexico masters’ road championships.
If just one more guy would’ve crashed in the final kilometer, I’d have won the sonofabitch. Maybe.
“You coulda been somebody…You coulda been a contender.” or some such thing, right Pat? Hell a Frankenbike is awesome!! If it has two wheels, a chain, at least two working gears (i.e. the ability to coast), then it’s all good.
Of course, you could slap that 42×19 on and call it a “single speed.” Hmm….
I have a cousin with ALS, which causes me to occasionally remind myself just to thank my lucky pagen gods that I can ride a bike at all. Still, I tend to bitch and moan about being so “large” and slow.
Which is why I need the frequent reminders.
State Championships are at the AFA this year. See you there on July 15?