Counting teeth

Sometimes I talk to cyclists (by this I mean actual, real people who are cyclists, and not the imaginary people in my head who I address in this blog), and they demonstrate their superiority in all things bike by attempting to discuss with me the number of teeth on the sprocketty things at the back of our respective bikes. These people always know the number of teeth they have on each sprocket, and I never do. Sometimes I have to look to check which bike I am riding.

Obviously these people are geekier than I am about bikes. That people even exist who are geekier about bikes than me might come as a surprise, but it is true, they do (and when I say people, I don't really mean people, I mean men).

I think these people actually consider the gearing of their bikes before they buy them. I tend to buy a bike because I like the colour, or the shiny bits attached to it are aesthetically pleasing in some way, or the man in the shop tells me that it's really great and it's just what I need (they often say that). I have been known to discuss the merits of triples over doubles or compacts with bike shop assistants, but we can usually both tell that neither of us really knows what we are talking about, our eyes glaze over, conversation peters out and I buy the bike anyway just to end the embarrassing silence.

So in an attempt to satisfy my inner geek, to bolster my male pride (seriously dented now that I have admitted in public that I choose bikes entirely on the basis of the colour), and to maintain the impression that I understand these things, I have decided to perform a survey of the number of teeth on all of the sprockets on all of the bikes in the house.

I also think it could be useful to know which gears I use, which combinations I like, and maybe even, why. All of this valuable research will lead me to the conclusion that I need a new bike. Probably.

The result of all this oily tooth counting is summarised in a table. This shows the number of teeth on the chainset, whether double (or compact) or triple, and the number of teeth on the cassette sprockets; these are labelled "front" and "rear" in the table (respectively) for simplicity, and possibly clarity.

The "Gear inches" columns show the gear inches for each gear combination, calculated in the following way:

Gear inches = (F / R) x D

where F is the number of teeth on the front ring, R is the number of teeth on the rear sprocket and D is the wheel diameter in inches, including the tyre.

This is explained, and can be calculated here and here. Wikipedia has a good explanation of gear inches, and its origins for those interested. Although it dates back to the days of the high wheeler (AKA penny farthing), the usefulness of the measure is that it allows you to directly compare gear combinations on different bicycles with different sized wheels.

I've done the calculations for all of the gear combinations, even though I realise that some of them are never used, or at least aren't really sensible to use; big ring at the front to big sprocket at the back being the obvious example.

Bike	Gear manufacturer	Front	Rear	Wheel size	Gear inches
Best road bike	Campag  Veloce / FSA – 2 x 10	50 34	25/23/21/19/17/16/15/14/13/12	700c	52.6/57.2/62.6/69.2/77.4/82.2/87.7/93.9/101.2/109.6 35.8/38.9/42.6/47.1/52.6/55.9/59.6/63.9/68.8/74.5
Old steel  road bike	Shimano RX100 – 2 x 7	52 42	23/21/97/17/15/14/13	700c	59.5/65.1/72.0/80.5/91.2/97.7/105.2 48.0/52.6/58.1/65.0/73.6/78.9/85.0
Tandem	Shimano Deore / Sugino – 3 x 8	48 36 26	30/24/19/17/16/14/12/11	26”	50.5/54.9/60.166.4/74.3/84.2/90.2/97.1/105.2 40.0/43.5/47.6/52.6/58.8/66.6/71.4/76.983.3 29.5/32.0/35.0/38.8/43.3/49.1/52.6/56.7/61.4
Hybrid	Shimano Altura – 3 x 7	42 32 22	28/24/21/18/15/13/11	700c	40.5/47.3/54.0/63.0/75.6/87.2/103.1 30.9/36.0/41.1/48.0/57.6/66.5/78.6 21.2/24.8/28.3/33.0/39.6/45.7/54.0
Modern MTB	Shimano Deore – 3 x 9	44 32 21	32/28/24/21/18/16/14/12/11	26”	35.1/40.1/46.8/53.4/62.3/70.1/80.1/93.5/102.0 25.5/29.1/34.0/38.9/45.3/51.0/58.3/68.0/74.2 16.7/19.1/22.3/25.5/29.8/33.5/38.3/44.6/48.7

 
Once I had counted all of those teeth, tabulated them and calculated the gear inch values, then I needed to think of something to say about them. And I'm not sure what that something is, so I may just be waffling from this point.

The tandem

From what I have read about tandems, especially touring tandems, most people agree that the widest range of gears possible is a good thing, and I haven't seen much convincing evidence for the use of doubles or compact doubles on tandems anywhere that has hills. Some racing tandems are almost certainly excepted.
Given that this isn't a racing tandem, and that I have ambitions to tour, and that I am surrounded by hills, the gear options on my particular tandem look well thought out and appropriate (but purely by chance as I only bought the tandem after I happened to see it in the shop window from the car). There aren't quite the low gears you would get on a true MTB, but I'm not sure I could keep the tandem upright with any lower gearing.

The road bikes

 

I think that I already understood the difference between the road bikes; the old steel bike (an Orbit America from 1991, pretty much as new in terms of build) has an old school double and a 7-speed rear, meaning that the gearing is limited and there are no easy options uphill. A bike for flat country, or more likely, proper hard men. I do love this bike, but I might not quite be up to it.

The new road bike (an alloy Bianchi from 2009) has a compact double, and from the numbers you can see that you get a wider range than the Orbit, both because it's a compact (50/34 compared to the Orbit's 42/52) and because it's a 10-speed. But what makes better sense to me now is why I seem to be changing gear so much, and why those changes are often changes at the front and the back at the same time. The gears are just too far apart and there are often no easy routes between those gears that are close together in terms of gear inches. So that might well explain why on rolling ground, for example, I never seem to be in quite the right gear... And why I don't think a compact double would be my first choice in the future no matter what the marketing men want me to believe.

The hybrid

This is geared pretty much like a mountain bike, but I guess the big wheels make a difference to the gear inches. To be honest it is fine; probably the gears are a bit low, as I spend more time in the big ring than on the other bikes, but given what I use it for, it is OK.

The MTB

This has some very low gears, the kind you struggle to move your legs fast enough for. This seems to sum up the difference between roadies and offroaders. With a road bike the cooler you are the bigger the gear you can push, with an MTB the smaller the gear you can turn without the bike falling over, the cooler you are.

I'm not very good at spinning my legs that quickly, but apart from that this has all the gears I need, and they always seem to be in the right place.

Summary

I'm fairly certain that my perfect all-round bike, for the terrain I currently ride on, would have a triple somewhere in the region of what I have on the tandem.

The obvious alternative, the compact double, looks great on paper, but not so good in real life.

The downside of a triple is the increase in weight, which is small enough for me to live with, the alleged increase in maintenance overhead, which I am not really convinced by, and the sheer unhipness amongst the wannabe racer crew, who I don't care about (especially when they are walking and I'm not).

I wonder how many others would come to this conclusion if they gave it some proper thought and could get away from the attitude that only old men and weaklings needed triples? Or just stopped buying what they were told to buy.

And maybe I should have thought this through before I bought all of those bikes.

I've never done a sportive

The thing about cycling is that I never get to do it as much as I intend to. The more I think about this the more I realise that there are several really good reasons why this happens.

Firstly, my plans are always essentially vague; I must cycle more this year, I say emphatically (actually, probably not say, just, well, think, but emphatically, definitely emphatically...). I don't say "I must cycle 100 miles a week", or "I must cycle 3000 miles this year", or anything at all specific, I just say "I must cycle more". And then, obviously, I just don't.

My second excuse is that I don't do any cycling type events. If it was running we were talking about here I would have signed up for 10 events by now, and then I would have to get out the door and train to avoid turning up at a race I was entirely unprepared for, and having to walk most of it. And I don't underestimate the word "race"; if you run, at whatever standard, you will eventually enter a race. Not an event, a race.

Then there is my training partner (who is also my wife), who doesn't really cycle much. If we go out running, we tend to go together, and if we go swimming, we do that together. We usually enter the same races, and sometimes we even run them together. She does go out on the tandem with me, but doesn't currently cycle on a solo bike with me (or at all really). This means that when I cycle, I go on my own, and although she is quite encouraging and probably doesn't really hold it against me, I have this sense of smouldering resentment in my mind. And while I am out she usually does especially useful things like earning money or even hoovering the rugs, and this just makes me feel more guilty (sometimes she does less useful things like rearranging her collection of nail polishes in order of the colour spectrum, but this is obviously just scary).

So this year I have a plan to address those very issues.

First of all, I have a goal: a rather conservative (and therefore eminently achievable) cycling target of 2000 miles (or 3220 km to be more traditional).

Secondly, I have entered an event.

At this point I need to digress a little once again. I have never, to date, completed (or even started, although I did once enter) a cycling sportive or an audax, or a race or a time trial, and to be honest races and time trials are entirely out of my league.

As for sportives, I'm a bit put off by sportives as I have a slightly biased view of them as being full of "middle aged men in lycra", comparing their latest shiny carbon fibre "steeds" and "weapons of choice" and discussing the merits of leading brands of energy gel. And then they would all humiliate me by being faster than me.

I'm also a bit put off by Audax events as I have a slightly biased view of them as being full of  mildly eccentric bearded blokes, on outlandish recumbents, saddlebags bulging with moth eaten windcheaters and lemon curd sandwiches. And then they would all humiliate me by being faster than me. Even the 84 year old on a "trice".

But at least audax events are cheap; with a sportive I may well have to pay 75 quid to ride the same public roads I could ride any day of the year, the sole difference being that if I choose to do the sportive I get a "free" banana and an out of date energy bar half way round.

Anyway, to return to the point, I have entered an event... and it is a sportive. It is only 60 miles (100 km), but it does give me something to train towards. And I need to see if my prejudices are justified in any way. I also need to be sure about the audax things, so I have one or two of them on my radar, but I may need to enter incognito given my comments about the lemon curd.

So I think I have finally arrived at my plan to address the third and final problem; how to stop feeling guilty about Mrs JD. And the answer is.... I have entered an event, but better still, so has she, and we are going to do it together on the tandem. Which means we need to train together on the tandem... and so harmony is restored.

Footnotes;
(1) We have entered the Virgin Money Cyclone Challenge B ride on the 29th June, and are considering the 100km mini Dales tour audax on the 8th September.
(2) I was only joking about the lemon curd.
(3) I am still fairly sure most people at an audax event would be able to humiliate me by being faster than me over any distance greater than 500m.