I've done most of my training for IMUK 70.3 on my TT with a Standard set up. Covered plenty of hills but on the steeper ones I find myself having to really put power through the peddles, even in the lowest gear. I'm worried what this will do to my legs towards the end of the run.
I don't want to race on my road bike so for Wimbleball, would you advise switching from a standard to a compact?
Comments
Would the hills in this race justify it?
Could you get away with a longer cassette instead?
FWIW, i've just stuck a compact set on my TT bike for IM Nice, and it's a noticeable difference.
Wait for Dan the Engineer to come along and he will dazzle us with the figures but i think, it will make a difference to the amount of power you put out and energy used up.
If you are thinking about switching chainsets, I'd also throw into the mix, changing to a cx chainset rather than compact. They're typically 36/46 rather than say 34/50 for a compact.
You loose a bit at the top end (but ask yourself how often are you spinning out top gear?), and you don't get quite a lower gear as a compact either, but what you do end up with is a set of gears which don't have the massive gaps between em that a compact has. Which imo is far more useful when you're trying to fine tune effort to cadence.
I don't mind standard. Used it in 2012 and will use it again in 12 (and a bit) days!
... and the run is harder! 13 miles of mostly off road and hilly
Cheers folks. In the end work commitments prevented me getting to the LBS so I'm sticking with the standard whether I like it or not.
It's no difference to the power you put out until you are going up the steep stuff. At this point you are limited by gearing to maintaining a minimum sustainable cadence. If you're exerting a large force on the pedals, undoubtedly that is a large power output. It's not optimal, but if you're stuck with a standard then as someone else noted - a wide range cassette may be an option. Just make sure you have enough capacity in your RD.