UKC

My road bike as a compact (50/34) and an 11-23 cassette. At the weekend I'm doing a ride with a lot of climbing, but it's all short but very steep stuff, multiple >25% bits - although they're very short.

34x23 is probably going to kill me on the really steep stuff, so I was thinking of using my MTB which has a low gear of 30x28. I just wondered about the easier gearing, versus the weight. The MTB is obviously heavier than my road bike, would that extra weight (5kg) offset the extra gears I'll have?

The route is all on road so just trying to decide which bike to take!

In reply to Richard Carter:

Is your MTB the same speed as your road bike? you could swap casettes.

In reply to Double Knee Bar:

No the MTB is only 10 speed.

In reply to Richard Carter:

Stick with the roadie and meditate on rule 5

In reply to Richard Carter:

you will notice huge amounts of rolling resistance as well as the weight if you use your mtb.

I take it the roadie is 11 speed if you say the mtb is "just 10 speed"

if you don't mind spending a bit of money, your best bet will be to get new cassette for the roadie (and chain) something like a 11-28 if your deraileur will take it (most will) and then you have it as a an option you can swap on and off the bike as required (it is important though to match the chain and cassettes so you don't get issues with uneven wear)

In reply to Richard Carter:



The MTB isn't exactly low - on mine it's more like 22x36 - so it's hard for me to make a comparison. On my roadie it's 34x32 and I do find I need that occasionally - such as going up Winnats pass into a strong headwind.

I did do a fair bit of roading on an MTB (with CX tyres) last year and I didn't find the weight a big issue. Or rather I didn't find that switching to a road bike this year made quite as big a difference as I expected.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

I have a short cage derailleur so I guess I could look at what cassette will fit on the road bike. A quick google seems to suggest your 11-28 idea would work.


The MTB is on conti RaceKing 2.0 racesport tyres so maybe it's not too bad :-P not really used it on road that much to know. Just weighed the bikes to compare, it's 11.5kg for the MTB so it's not as heavy as I thought.

In reply to Richard Carter:

One other thought.
I could put road tyres on the MTB, maybe that's the way to go? It's take off weight and rolling resistance I guess.

In reply to Richard Carter:

It will certainly help, but my commuter old hardtail mtb on conti sport contact (road tyres) is still noticeably draggy comparted to my roadie plus I spin out at about 35-40mph

In reply to Richard Carter:

Id defo go with the idea of getting a bigger cassette on your road bike. I use a compact with 11-28 on back and that does me fine around north wales.

In reply to Richard Carter:

I'd go with changing the cassette. I've just done the C2C riding a Tricross with 50/40/30 and 11-30 cassette and it was the ideal gearing for what amounted to a light tour. My son was on my old hardtail with slicks and a massive range of gears and huge brakes and he was constantly fiddling with the shifters to find the right ratio, so great are the gaps. Road bike every time for road work.

In reply to Richard Carter:

Swap chainsets? or even chainrings

In reply to Richard Carter:

Another + for a bigger cassette.

Make sure though that if you are going from a 23 to a 28 that there's enough chain length for if you ever go into 50 - 28 without ripping the dereilleur out lengthways.

(And before anyone pulls me up for big ring big sprocket riding - sometimes it's unavoidable and I do it all the time on my Dura Ace)

Cheers,

E

In reply to Richard Carter:

I'd get another cassette but I need more gears than what you currently have for even mild hills.

What's the weekend ride you have planned? I'm doing a sportive in the peak district called the grindleford goat, quite hilly apparently.

Hopefully my leg will be feeling better by the weekend.

In reply to Enty:

Ive started crossing my chain more since i started using cadence sensor(realised what i thought was about 90 rpm was actually about 80). Unavoidable especially with a compact .

In reply to Double Knee Bar:
Anything for an easy life. And energy conservation.

I used to think the small ring was for wimps.

Got to keep on spinning .

Di2 looks tempting now for the front mech change alone.Beautiful.

In reply to gethin_allen:

I'm doing 'The Beast' which starts in Durham, the description on British Cycling is;
"It may only be 50 miles - just over now there has been another hill added, but with just under two miles of vertical climb it is a case of if you are not going up, you are going down."

I'm assuming the two miles of climbing is an exaggeration :-P

In reply to Richard Carter:

Push harder?

In reply to Richard Carter:
I cycled a 16km loop (107m of climbing) on my road bike, then again on my MTB. Just checked the Garmin figures for the laps, so now we can get a figure on the difference between them :-D

Lap 1;
Road bike (50x11 used), time taken 25 minutes 56 seconds

Lap 2;
MTB (44x11 used), time taken 28 minutes 50 seconds



If we say it'll take me an extra 3 minutes per 10 miles, then using the MTB will add 15mins. Although the MTB lap I was already tired.... hmmm. Also, writing this it occurs to me that I've made a bit of a mistake really. I went all out, but that means aerodynamics would have a bigger effect (because of the high speed) than it would at the weekend... so the results would favour the road bike.

So basically, I've conclusively proved that I need a powermeter before we can resolve this :-P

In reply to Richard Carter:

Or you just need to do the same again but with the mtb first. even Tired you'd be surprised the difference a 25 minute warm up will give you.

In reply to TomBaker:

Awww, I don't really want to do it again :-P

Tomorrow I'll do it the other way round. Then we can average stuff! :-D

In reply to Richard Carter:

Two miles appear to be quite an exaggeration indeed, mapometer says 4800 feet = 0.91 miles. The grindleford goat is supposedly 4500 foot of climbing over 68 miles, I feel rather under prepared. Fortunately I know the start of the route so if my leg gives me stick I'll abandon ship at the ~35 mile mark.

In reply to Richard Carter:

So much knowledge here.....

I'm very new to this so bear with me please.

I've just changed the rear cassette on my road bike from 11 26 to an 11 28 Ultegra. But I couldn't for the life of me get all the cogs onto the splines on the axle -(There seem to be two '11' cogs.....)

So I now have 10 cogs where I had 11.... The upshot on my first ride (it's quite hilly here) It works, the 28 makes a big difference and I am less boxed, but a tiny bit slower overall (a matter of seconds).

Does that make sense? (particularly not being able to get the last cog to fit onto the splines)

Steve

In reply to Richard Carter:

Something's wrong there. Presumably you replaced an 11 speed cassette with another 11 speed? The 11 tooth cog doesn't really slip over the freehub body very far, it engages and then you fit the lock ring and do it up eff-off tight (old English engineering term).

If your cassette is 11 speed you should not have a 1mm spacer behind it. If you did before, I don't know how the original cassette was fitted.

In reply to Rigid Raider:

Hi

I think I've figured out what's wrong. The 'last' cog has a built in spacer, with a biggish gap, the one I've not fitted has a tiny built in spacer. The latter must be cog number 10, not 11 and will probably engage on the spacer built into 11.

Doh!

Doing the two laps the other way around I shaved 30s off the MTB, and was 16s slower on the road bike.

Not sure what this proves really! Don't think I'll change the cassette/chain as its going be £70 in the local shop and I have no time for the internet. £70 is a bit much for one bike ride.

Plus I'm kind of curious if I can do it on the road bike now :-P
What if I put the MTB cassette on the road bike - can I use that or will it make the 11 speed shifter angry. I'll still need a new chain but at least that's only £30 or whatever.