Rob3rt
Man or Moose!
- Location
- Manchester
That is a nice bike. I own 2 Cannondale's myself and tbh, would be hard pressed to buy anything else!
"So far about 600 + miles, I have no idea what it did in its 18 years or so life before me." Quote from your earlier post, PA.
You seem to have fitted a hell of a lot into those 600 miles - 47mph, KOM sprints, descents, running out of gears - I don't know why your'e looking for another bike, sounds like you should be unbeatable on that one .
Thing is, im not comfortable on this bike, not positioning, I mean I dont feel like me and my bike are "one". It creeks, and grinds, and the pedals wobbly, the brakes squeek, and it heavy! so I struggle up hills.I can feel its not smooth in the cranks, I could spend more money changing aload of parts but I think it will be better to just get a new one. I wanna keep the 52t I already have, not losing high end gears when buy a new one. I dont wanna be slower on my runs because my new bike dont have the gears.
Where do you gain the most time?... on a theoretical 500m slope this is the difference that an extra 400w or so makes going down/up:Thing is, im not comfortable on this bike, not positioning, I mean I dont feel like me and my bike are "one". It creeks, and grinds, and the pedals wobbly, the brakes squeek, and it heavy! so I struggle up hills.I can feel its not smooth in the cranks, I could spend more money changing aload of parts but I think it will be better to just get a new one. I wanna keep the 52t I already have, not losing high end gears when buy a new one. I dont wanna be slower on my runs because my new bike dont have the gears.
Assuming a high power cadence range of 95-135rpm in the nice tight range of an 11-23 cassette, 13-17t sprockets, we get the following speeds:
50t = 21.8-40.5mph
53t = 23.1-42.9mph
56t = 24.4-45.4mph
59t = 25.7-47.8mph
You should be able to high the high 140rpm for short perods but 135rpm is about what most people top out at for sustained periods. That's 47.9mph on 50/11, 53/11 50.7mph, 56/11 53.6mph & 59/11 is 56.5mph, from about 50mph looking to need about 600-800w to beat the aerodynamic disadvantage of peddling v's being in an aero position that you physically can't pedal in.
You are missing the point! At least it seems to me you are. If you want to improve your average speed (top end speed is a different matter we can discuss that next), then you need to maintain higher speeds for longer period. This means less slowing for hills, faster flat speeds, possibly at the expense of a bit of top end speed on descents and sprints. You can easily see this for yourself. Sprint up to 30mph then stop at a traffic light, or drop to a cruising speed and watch the average drop on your computer! It doesn't take much riding below the high speeds to see the average crippled. You need to maintain high pace rather than yo-yo between sprints and then pootling at 15mph to get high average speeds and fast times over a certain distance. If you yo-yo all you do is have a few spikes of speed and then a lower than normal cruising speed because you are tired from the sprints.
As for top end speed, how often do you actually use the hardest gear at the rear? Especially in the small ring where the difference between a compact and double is most evident (hopefully nearly never)! as for the big ring, 4T on the front cog has less effect than 1 tooth at the rear, so going from 52T to 50T will not manifest itself very obviously even for top end sprinting for the normal rider.
4 tooth difference in chainring example
54:11 = 129 gear inches
50:11=119.5 gear inches
Difference = 9.5 inches
1 tooth difference in smallest gear on cassette example
54:11 = 129 gear inches
54:10 = 141.9 gear inches
Difference = 12.9 inches.
Switching your 52T for a 50T will lose you only 5.8 gear inches.
Up hills I struggle, My low gears arnt low enough.
Up hills I struggle, I'm not fit enough