Do you hill climb at your lowest possible gear?

[Milkfloat]

Being the size I am and having a lowest gear of 36/28 I frequently run out of gears on my Cotswold's routes. I could spend a fortune on a new derailleur, cassette and chain but prefer to suffer.

 

[rivers]

Depends on the hill and even the day. Things like sleep quality can make a massive difference into how easy or hard I find a hill. Did I have a tough turbo session the night before? Or a particularly hard week of riding? Did I attack a previous hill and am now paying the price? Or did we time our coffee stop wrong and have a major climb just after we set off again? Hills- they never get easier, you just get faster

 

[Chris S]

Sounds like a Sturmey Archer, possibly on a brommie

It's a Sturmey Archer hub in a Raleigh frame with Ammaco parts. I bought the Ammaco for its 650A mudguards. Since then I've also had the saddle, wheelset, bottom bracket and crankset from it. It was quite a good buy for a tenner.

 

[avecReynolds531]

A penny-farthing rider who had travelled from Geneva back to UK said: "I've never seen a hill that I can't walk up."

 

[RichardB]

Wonderful book. In the days before the internet it was my only teacher. I learned literally everything I knew from that book. I still don't know much more. That's why I struggle to fix anything on my bike that was introduced after the mid 80s.

Has it been updated, I wonder, to include sections on new kinds of bottom bracket, threadless headsets, indexed gears, cassettes and freehubs, disk brakes ...

I could have written every word of that first paragraph. I learned a lot of technical stuff, but it also took me from being just someone who rode a bike (transport and showing off to mates) into someone keen on cycling as an activity and cycles as mechanical objects: a lifelong passion, really. His enthusiasm was highly contagious. I think the last book he had direct involvement in was the big blue Richard's New Bicycle Book. I think there have been newer versions since he died, done by others, but I haven't got too much interest in those.

 

[Johnsco]

Some reading might help.

I read this book multiple times as a young cyclist. I found it very useful.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/richard's-bicycle-book/

I think we all had a copy of that book when we were young !!
A great book.

 

[bladesman73]

Depends on the hill. Some real aharp but short hills you can power up in the large chainring. Others you just need to settle into a rhythm, usually on the small front chainring

 

[oreo_muncher]

Some techno-trickery.
It’s quite annoying at first but you get used to it.
Basically if you’re on the big ring at the front and you go up the cassette too far it drops the front down to the small ring and moves the rear to find the same gear.It’s to stop chain crossover etc.
I can choose manual(normal) Syncro or semi-syncro.
Once you’ve had it you won’t want to go back!

So how do i get this tech wizardry into my life?

 

[T.M.H.N.E.T]

You need an upgrade to Shimano DI2, that'll set you back around £1000 + fitting extras

 

[oreo_muncher]

You need an upgrade to Shimano DI2, that'll set you back around £1000 + fitting extras

I could buy a new bike for that money!😅

 

[Sniper68]

You need an upgrade to Shimano DI2, that'll set you back around £1000 + fitting extras

If

I could buy a new bike for that money!😅

Worth every penny
SRAM Etap is totally wireless but around £1600 but easier to fit than Di2.
If Shimano hasn’t gone wireless I’ll be fitting Etap to my next build.
Probably not economical to fit Di2 to a cheaper bike but not unheard of!
I’m tempted to fit it to my Winter bike....if I can cobble together a cheapish 2nd hand bundle of Di2 bits

 

[Ming the Merciless]

It's a Sturmey Archer hub in a Raleigh frame with Ammaco parts. I bought the Ammaco for its 650A mudguards. Since then I've also had the saddle, wheelset, bottom bracket and crankset from it. It was quite a good buy for a tenner.

On CTC rides on my Brommie I found myself getting up hills first. Those on road bike changed down to a low gear and span away. I had my same lowest gear as you, so stood up, kept my cadence above a comfortable level for me, and accelerated away from them.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

A bit like when I fitted a lower bottom gear to my bike. Going up the hills was so much better, more comfortable and I felt I could do more before I ran out of steam. Careful examination of my ride stats showed, of course, that part of this improvement involved going up them more slowly

Indeed you are more comfortable but slower uphill and nothing wrong with that. Though I do find that on long rides being slower uphill at the start doesn’t mean you are slower uphill at the end as you haven’t tired the legs out so much.

 

[Mike_P]

Many hills are not single gear friendly, with variable gradients, meaning changing gear is necessary IME to avoid spinning madly on the less steep stretches. Main thing is to limit such changes of gear to the rear derailleur as trying to change the front whilst going uphill is most likely going to result in the chain coming off due to the tension.

 

[cougie uk]

If

Worth every penny
SRAM Etap is totally wireless but around £1600 but easier to fit than Di2.
If Shimano hasn’t gone wireless I’ll be fitting Etap to my next build.
Probably not economical to fit Di2 to a cheaper bike but not unheard of!
I’m tempted to fit it to my Winter bike....if I can cobble together a cheapish 2nd hand bundle of Di2 bits

Di2 won't help you get up hills. Knowing what to do and having the legs to do it will.