From Zimpenfish on Flickr
As I mentioned in an earlier post, after many permutations, I’ve finally settled on a gear setup. If your FTP isn’t > 300 watts, I’d recommend this setup if you want to keep you cadence up on climbs and/or you just need a bailout gear sometimes.
– I have an Ultegra 9 speed drivetrain (which is bulletproof BTW)
– I swapped the stock 53/34-ish front cranks with a FSA Gossamer 50/34 crankset (I still have no idea why most bikes ship with pro-gearing
– I put the biggest cassette they would allow on a short cage rear derailleur (11-27) and that was just OK
– After doing a lot of homework from the master himself I bought an individual 30 tooth cog from harriscyclery, backed off my b-screw and it got better.
– I also had to buy a toolset with a cog removal tool
I rode this setup around for a couple of years and on my ride to SLO in 2011 and it was fine until I hit this hill outside of King City and I cracked. 100 degrees, 50 miles of headwind, blah blah. So since then I’ve been thinking I needed a bailout gear.
– For mostly ego-centric reasons, it was hard for me to admit that I needed a big saucer gear to get me out of trouble but I finally pulled the trigger.
– Even though I probably could have reversed my b-screw and fit a 32 cog in the back, I wanted to have max flexibility so I bought a long cage mountain derailleur (make sure to get the SGS, not the shorter GS) and a new goto chain since I’d be pulling more links
– Of course I bought a new 34 cog from harriscyclery, I forgot to mention that I had also purchased a 13 tooth first cog from them as well.
– And then I put it all on, following a lot of instructions from the park tools and harriscyclery website. Frankly, if you aren’t interested in learning how this stuff works like I am, just take it to a shop and have them do it.
So where I wound up is with a cassette in back that is 13-15-17-19-21-24-27-30-34, just like the CS923 Cyclotouriste 13, a 50-34 on front and a lot of solid high cadence climbs that are now open to me.
The lucky thing was that if you buy a standard 12-27 you can replace a few gears and wind up with the 13-34. The gear spreads match perfectly. Or you can buy it from Harris Cyclery (which is a great shop)
I tested the setup on my TT hill (up hwy 9 in Saratoga) and my cadence was easily in the 80s the whole way up. Before I’d struggle to keep it in the 70s.
Now let’s hope my legs keep up.