Petition to Shimano to introduce cassettes starting with 14

[Proto]

I don't own a TV...

The Cycle Clinic keep all the Miche cogs in stock and will assemble, within reason, any cassette you want. The last two I’ve bought have been 13/29 and 13/32. Like the OP I have no need for an 11, or even 12 tooth starter cog.

https://thecycleclinic.co.uk/collec...e-11-speed-primato-cassettes-for-shimano-sram

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The Cycle Clinic keep all the Miche cogs in stock and will assemble, within reason, any cassette you want. The last two I’ve bought have been 13/29 and 13/32. Like the OP I have no need for an 11, or even 12 tooth starter cog.

https://thecycleclinic.co.uk/collec...e-11-speed-primato-cassettes-for-shimano-sram

That’s all well and good, but do they sell TVs?

 

[Racing roadkill]

Most mortals really don’t / can’t get maximum benefit from an 11 tooth sprocket, it’s virtually impossible to get a more traditional ratio of chain ring and 11 tooth sprocket at an efficient effective power and cadence. Your either grinding it too slowly ( on the flat, or up a hill ) or spinning it at too high a cadence / too low a power for it to be efficient ( down a steep hill ). However, max efficiency, doesn’t often directly equate to max speed. I think keeping / maintaining a choice of 11 / 12 / 13 sprockets would be fine, but keep it in mind that they really would only benefit super high power sprints, or short exertions, or shorter distance TTs, and most leisure riders ( in particular) really can’t make those small sprockets work well.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

10 and 11 speed.
I think these would be put to better use reducing the spacing further up the cassette..

Correct. I'm on 9 still and I have been riding a 14-25 cassette for some years with a triple with 44,34,24. But now, with age, I need smaller gears. So I buy two cassettes and make up a 16-32 close ratio cassette with an option for fitting a 36 if I use a drop out extender. Even when I were a fit young thing I couldn't pedal a 13 sprocket. and gaps in the cassette are very disruptive to smooth pedalling I find.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

The Cycle Clinic keep all the Miche cogs in stock and will assemble, within reason, any cassette you want. The last two I’ve bought have been 13/29 and 13/32. Like the OP I have no need for an 11, or even 12 tooth starter cog.

https://thecycleclinic.co.uk/collec...e-11-speed-primato-cassettes-for-shimano-sram

Yeahbutt ££££££ last time I looked

 

[Venod]

I have pointed this out on many occasions.

46 x 11 which is the biggest gear on any of my bikes, is a bigger gear than 52 x 13 which for a long time was the norm for a lot of riders.

 

[Landsurfer]

14 - 42, 9 speed, for my single ring FSA chainset with a 26 chainring ....... hills ..what hills .....

 

[Smokin Joe]

I have pointed this out on many occasions.

46 x 11 which is the biggest gear on any of my bikes, is a bigger gear than 52 x 13 which for a long time was the norm for a lot of riders.

Eddy Merckx and his contemporaries included. I know things have moved on, bikes are lighter making bigger gears easier to push for top class riders, but most of us are a long way short of that and the option of a closer spaced cassette without the powerhouse sprockets would be nice to have.

As for Miche cassettes, used them in the past and wasn't impressed.

 

[Mike Ayling]

However in 10 yrs a triple will be the new thing that everyone will want Fashion init.

This bloke doesn't think so but he raises a lot of other interesting ideas.

https://www.renehersecycles.com/predictions-for-the-2020s/

Mike

 

[Tigerbiten]

I don't have a problem with an 11 tooth small sprocket.
A 10 speed 11-28 cassette has a nice ratio of close gears for high speed work and wider gears for hill climbing.
Match it with a 44-34-24 triple for an 108"-23" gear range.

The problem is getting the shifters and front mech working together with smaller than road standard chainrings.
If you use a road mech which will work with sti levers then the curve is wrong for the chainrings and if you use a mtb front mech which fits the chainrings then the pull is wrong for sti levers.
You can bodge it with workarounds but you shouldn't have to.

YMMV ............

 

[Dogtrousers]

Yeahbutt ££££££ last time I looked

Why is that?

Obviously I'm missing something here but a cassette is mechanically very simple. It's just a stack of sprockets with splined holes to engage the freehub, that engage with each other to spread the load, and that are held in place by a lock ring.

Fine tolerance machining with modern CNC tools shouldn't be super expensive.

So why is a pick n mix approach such an expensive luxury? Is it just because of the low demand?

Maybe only gear nerds who hang around on cycling forums are bothered that 11T is a bit too high to be efficiently useful?

Or maybe that's the real cost and we should be grateful that the mass produced standard cassettes are so cheap, rather than moaning that they don't quite meet our personal needs.

 

[DCBassman]

Like so much of everything cycling, these tiny sprockets have trickled down from racing. There's little market for pick n mix.
My current cassette choice is a 12-36t 9 speed, but the only reason over 11t is that the 12t version has the sprockets spaced more evenly right across the cassette. No idea why that is, but...
Shimano HG400, btw.

 

[Tigerbiten]

I think that most modern cyclist been a bit brainwashed by the trickle down from racing and don't really know better.

When I started I had 3x5 gears with a range of roughly 3x.
Top gear was from just over 100" down to roughly 35".
So I had to pick my own gears with care.

Now 2x10 with a range of 4.5x is standard.
In the same time the big chainring went from 53t to 50t and sprockets from 14t to 11t.
So top gear is roughly 20% higher but the greater range means that the lowest gears is also around 20% lower.
So there is lot less need to pick your own gears.

Once you start to look beyond "bog standard" gears then you start to realize how bad the "bog standard" gears are for average riders.
How many normal riders need to cycle downhill at +35 mph .........
But if you shrink all the "bog standard" gears by roughly 10%-20% to shift the gears to a more useful range then you'll probably fall into a marketing disaster because that implies that you're not good enough to use racing gears.
Hence the brainwashing from racing.

YMMV .........

 

[Stompier]

But if you shrink all the "bog standard" gears by roughly 10%-20% to shift the gears to a more useful range then you'll probably fall into a marketing disaster because that implies that you're not good enough to use racing gears.
Hence the brainwashing from racing.

I don't get all this 'anti-racing' stuff. A typical road bike setup of 52/36 or 50/34 combined 11-28 will give most buyers a suitable gear range for almost every application. It doesn't imply that you have to be able to efficiently use every single gear combo on offer.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

How many normal riders need to cycle downhill at +35 mph .........

Leisure cycling is all about fun.

There is little in life more fun than going flat out down a hill, eg Cat and Fiddle. My fastest descent of the Cat *averages* nearly 30 mph for 6+ miles.

On such a ride, a 50/11 combo is perfect. Indeed, I changed from a 12-28 to 11-28 for exactly this reason. A 14 top gear would be awful for me.

Each to their own. I guess I'm abnormal.