cycling technique

frenchyge

No it doesn't, but it does basically halve the bloodflow available to your legs. That's bad for performance cycling.

As has been mentioned, most experienced cyclists have drifted toward gear-cadence combinations which allow them to travel up all but the steepest hills without being forced out of the saddle or into using their arms to supplement the weight of their body on the pedals.

Unless you're riding a single-speed bike, gearing adjustments are better made with rear cassette selections than different chainrings.

Edit: jeez... just saw your other posts about the knee pain/injury. Take the advice you've received multiple times now and look into some more conventional gearing.

wiredued

Thanks Dave I was thinking of changing more for my 3x20s that I do in the 52x19 combo right now the next cog is 17 kind of a big jump. I could switch the 40t middle ring with a 38t that I have but I like the 40t for outdoors and don't like shifting chain rings on the KK. I always forget to go back to the 52 for out of saddle 52x11 stretch at low L6 for a minute. The custom cassette I have now is 11,13,15,17,19,21,23,26 another alternative I might try is a custom 11,12,14,16,18,20,22,25.

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Romans 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. http://www.earnharts.com/html/reala...ecific.asp?id=3

wiredued

LOL I can't spin out that combo yet but I spun my 52/15 at 140rpm 37.8mph a while back. I almost caught up to Lucy.

__________________
Romans 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. http://www.earnharts.com/html/reala...ecific.asp?id=3

Billsworld

are you clipped in?....Toe clips.

daveryanwyoming

If you'll be inside on the trainer for most of the winter I'd just get the least expensive compatible 12-19, 12-21 or 12-23 cassette you can find. That will fill the gaps nicely and it's nice to have a tight cluster for crits and time trials during the race season. Unless you expect to climb big hills during the off season you shouldn't need the 25 or 26 tooth cogs or the 11 for that matter.

-Dave

wiredued

The 8 speed shimano corn cobs don't come with an 18t cog so I would probably still be making a custom cassette unless you know of an off brand that does.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/k7.html

__________________
Romans 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. http://www.earnharts.com/html/reala...ecific.asp?id=3

zander

thanks for asking, makes a change from just automatically being criticised. but no i don't have any toe clips, but i will get them.

frenchyge

Don't take it personally, anyone else who says/said the things you did would get a similar reaction. Newbies get handled a little differently, but with the cycling resume you posted it's kinda expected that a person with that experience would realize the connection between knee pain, using a chainring 15% bigger than 99+% of the other cyclists on the road, and having to use one's arms to help turn over such a big gear.

zander

i've always used my arms to pull gears whatever gearing ratio i had, and i did realize the connection, thats why i came here, if you look at the three topics i posted; diet improvements for knee ligaments, cycling technique and help on gear ratios, you don't even need to go into any of the threads, just the topic titles tell you that i wanted to see if there was anything else i could do, including reducing the size of my chainring. the first two topics were probably redundant, but if there were any improvements i could have made to either technique or diet, it still would've helped my knees regardless of what information i got out of the gear ratio topic.

and i didn't ever mention ever talking to a coach or any professional body on the technicalities of riding a bike so the assumption would be that if i'm asking for help on these topics there's a pretty good chance i know nothing about them or very little.
i did computing, and the first thing they tell you to do when helping someone is to assume they know nothing, and ask them questions to work out where their problem lies, then create a solution. simple, you don't look at their computer and say 'bloody hell your doing what!?, word processing!? your computers way overpowered for what your doing' and then just leave them to feel useless and dumb, you say 'hey, you can word process on a much lesser spec of computer and that'll save you money, here's a suggestion'

i'm just not used to people just throwing in terminology at me when the question i asked demonstrates that i know bugger all, and thats why i was on a 57 chainring.

my posts are gettin way too long, but right now am unemployed and hav alot of time right now to post, good news, or bad news on how you look at it, ha ha

daveryanwyoming

Welcome to the difference between a paid customer service position and an internet forum. No one here is obligated to answer your questions and there's an assumption of due dilligence or at least due respect when someone posts questions. If you can't google a term like "cadence" or step right up and say you have no idea what you're talking about then you should expect responses like you've received. We haven't even scratched the surface of jargon and acronymns in your threads but you simultaneously complain of terminology and tell us how long and seriously you've been involved in cycling. Do a google on nettiquette, in particular cross posting and reading FAQs or doing some basic due dilligence research like searching a site before posting questions. If nothing else it will help you understand the jargon you've complained about.

Sorry you got off to a bad start here, all in all there's a lot of good folks here willing to share their advice and experience.

Good luck,
Dave

Billsworld

Try some to clips and some cycling specific shoes. This might help you think about spinning the pedals instead of the mashing big gears that you are used to. The guys here gave you some good advise regarding using higher cadences(meaning spinning you pedals faster) If you have any cycling clubs in your area that might be a good place to start and you will begin to learn what some of the terms mean . Good luck and keep at it

zander

hey thanks for the info, i'm getting booted anyways, offended too many peoples sensibilities.