Fun triple GEARING setup

On Monday, December 14, 2015 at 3:20:07 PM UTC-8, jbeattie wrote:

Really? You can ride from San Francisco to Gilroy down the El Camino/Monterey Ave and do about thirty feet of climbing, excluding over-passes. O.K., there are some rollers down near Morgan Hill.

The SCV has some great climbing in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the other ranges that ring the Valley (Hamilton, Almaden, etc.), and you can knock out a lot of climbing without going very far, but a ride up and down the valley is pretty flat. That's what makes the SCV ideal for cycling -- elective rather than compulsory climbing.

http://geology.com/satellite/cities/...lite-image.jpg

Jay - what that satellite image appears to show and what is actually there are two different stories. You cannot get directly to Monterey by riding on more or less flats. A large section of that has more or less flat roads only on the freeway where you are not allowed to ride. And you would not WANT to ride after seeing the amount of traffic and their actions towards bicyclists FAR to the right part of the shoulder. Plus this is an OLD freeway so the creek and stream crossing bridges do not have any shoulder on them whatsoever. This leaves you with taking hill roads to get across. While I do not consider the climbs difficult even on a fully loaded touring bike most people from back east would.

It isn't so much the steepness which easterners can handle better than most westerners, since their older roads are generally much steeper in places, but the length of the climbs. It's the same with crossing the Sierra Nevada and Rockies. There are some flat routes but no thinking person would take them.

To get from my place in San Leandro to Monterey I would probably either go via a route to Los Gatos and over the Old Santa Cruz highway down to Capitola (this includes a mile long gravel trail with multiple users), Santa Cruz and along the coast - or from the Dumbarton Bridge which is the ONLY bridge with a bicycle lane and then instead of riding south to Los Gatos go over several climbs to Skyline Rd and down some really nasty two laners to the Coast Highway (Highway 1) but from Santa Cruz south to Monterey you still have to climb.

There is a reason that coast to coast riding is considered to be such a huge feat. Every possible condition exists in that distance.

On Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 6:10:08 AM UTC-8, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Tuesday, December 15, 2015 at 9:01:11 AM UTC-5, AMuzi wrote:
On 12/15/2015 4:58 AM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 14 Dec 2015 16:07:31 -0800, sms
wrote:

On 12/14/2015 3:20 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, December 14, 2015 at 2:04:38 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Saturday, December 5, 2015 at 3:10:43 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/5/2015 5:50 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

The funny and strange thing about a lot of bicyclists (or so it seems from reading some of these replies) is that they choose and install gearing for the terrain *WHERE THEY RIDE* NOT where someone else hundreds or even thousands of miles away rides.

I've ridden some pretty darn steep hills with just a 42 x 24 combination on one of my road bicycles.

Cheers

And speaking of terrain, steepness, etc.: I've wondered about a system
for describing the hilliness of a ride in a way that a person in
California could compare with a person in Ontario, in Ohio, in Florida.
(Well, OK, not in Florida. The only hills there are the bridges.)

"Steep" gets covered by percent grade. But one short 20% grade doesn't
make an otherwise flat ride very tough.

"Feet climbed" seems the most common. But 1000 feet climbed as a
continuous 5% grade seems way easier to me than 1000 feet of climbing a
series of super-steep, choppy up-and-down Appalachian hills.

Our club asks volunteer ride leaders to tell if a ride is flat, rolling
or hilly. But even that is a vague judgment call. On man's "hilly" is
another man's "rolling."

There are the climb "categories" in things like the Tour de France. But
I don't know how they're calculated. Or is it just a judgment thing?

Cheers

Thanks for the extra Cheers. It fits the season!

--
- Frank Krygowski

In the bay area here a normal 30 mile ride is usually something like 2500 feet of climbing with a max of about 12% and long (a mile or more) 8% sections. A flat ride has only 1500 feet with a max of 7%. I like a local steep climb of increasing 9-10-11 and finally 12 at the very top for 50 feet but it is only to 1100 feet. Lots of rollers into and out of that ride make it 3000 ft and 35 miles out and back. There are lots of hard ride around here as well.

Really? You can ride from San Francisco to Gilroy down the El Camino/Monterey Ave and do about thirty feet of climbing, excluding over-passes.. O.K., there are some rollers down near Morgan Hill.

The SCV has some great climbing in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the other ranges that ring the Valley (Hamilton, Almaden, etc.), and you can knock out a lot of climbing without going very far, but a ride up and down the valley is pretty flat. That's what makes the SCV ideal for cycling -- elective rather than compulsory climbing.

It's not very enjoyable to only ride down in the valley. The hills are
what are more funner sic. As we age, the hills can still be fun, it
just requires gearing that is age appropriate.

In the Bay Area, starting at age 50, use this formula: 1500/age=lowest
gear. So a 50 year old would want a 30 inch low, a 60 year old a 25 inch
low. Sure there are variations in cyclists in terms of weight, or
fitness, but even for very fit cyclists you want a higher cadence for
less stress.

Are you sure that your have that formula correct? I ask as I am a bit
over 60 and my Bangkok Bike has a "low" of ~40 inches, 40.5 " to be
exact.
--
cheers,

John B.


Doesn't work for this doddering old fart either. Lowest gear
I own is a 36".

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Has SMS EVER psted anything about bicycles or bicycling, that was truthful?

I'd check everything he said.

Cheers

I'm 71 and ride a low gear of 34-28 and reserve the bottom two gears for when I am tired after a very long ride of 80+ miles. Last spring at the end of an 82 miler I was holding 28 mph over the last 5 miles. Of course I was getting a rest at the lights which were about every half mile. But then I had to accelerate back up there. When I pulled into the parking lot I could hardly stand. And this was a ride known for hills.

SMS pretty much hits the target for most of the riders in the San Francisco bay area. But there are a lot of very fast riders. Until last year we had an 82 year old that rode with us that I couldn't keep up with. Then he sort of suddenly slowed up. Mostly because the younger guys in the group made every attempt to break him until they did. They must be really proud of themselves now.

On Wednesday, December 16, 2015 at 9:30:42 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Monday, December 14, 2015 at 3:20:07 PM UTC-8, jbeattie wrote:

Really? You can ride from San Francisco to Gilroy down the El Camino/Monterey Ave and do about thirty feet of climbing, excluding over-passes. O.K., there are some rollers down near Morgan Hill.

The SCV has some great climbing in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the other ranges that ring the Valley (Hamilton, Almaden, etc.), and you can knock out a lot of climbing without going very far, but a ride up and down the valley is pretty flat. That's what makes the SCV ideal for cycling -- elective rather than compulsory climbing.

http://geology.com/satellite/cities/...lite-image.jpg

Jay - what that satellite image appears to show and what is actually there are two different stories. You cannot get directly to Monterey by riding on more or less flats. A large section of that has more or less flat roads only on the freeway where you are not allowed to ride. And you would not WANT to ride after seeing the amount of traffic and their actions towards bicyclists FAR to the right part of the shoulder. Plus this is an OLD freeway so the creek and stream crossing bridges do not have any shoulder on them whatsoever. This leaves you with taking hill roads to get across. While I do not consider the climbs difficult even on a fully loaded touring bike most people from back east would.

It isn't so much the steepness which easterners can handle better than most westerners, since their older roads are generally much steeper in places, but the length of the climbs. It's the same with crossing the Sierra Nevada and Rockies. There are some flat routes but no thinking person would take them.

To get from my place in San Leandro to Monterey I would probably either go via a route to Los Gatos and over the Old Santa Cruz highway down to Capitola (this includes a mile long gravel trail with multiple users), Santa Cruz and along the coast - or from the Dumbarton Bridge which is the ONLY bridge with a bicycle lane and then instead of riding south to Los Gatos go over several climbs to Skyline Rd and down some really nasty two laners to the Coast Highway (Highway 1) but from Santa Cruz south to Monterey you still have to climb.

There is a reason that coast to coast riding is considered to be such a huge feat. Every possible condition exists in that distance.

Hey, I'm not saying there isn't a lot of climbing around there. I was born and raised in California -- Los Gatos High (go Wildcats), SJSU -- I raced on the SJBC. I've been up all the hills (or a lot of them). My low gear at the time was a 42/21 -- and usually a 19. Hamilton was mostly in a 42/17 with a 19 near the top. I used to ride up Hamilton on my track bike, which was great except for the descent. I rode a fully loaded touring bike from SJ up the coast to Vancouver BC with a low of 42/28 -- which was a mistake around Leggett, but it's doable. I did the coast on a loaded touring bike two other times using a triple, but the low was a 34/28 (Campy triple of yore) -- the same as my current rain bike. One of those trips took a hard right across the US -- the same gears went over all mountain ranges to the east coast.

BTW, my typical route to Monterey or Watsonville or points south was down to Gilroy and then over Hecker Pass. There are even flatter routes to the coast if you go further south (like over HWY 129), but I never took those routes and don't know if you can stay off 101. I would go over HWY 9 or San Jose Soquel Rd. if I were going to Santa Cruz or Aptos (frequent rides to Aptos because of family) -- and for points more north, I would go over Old LaHonda or one of those climbs. From your house, you could go down through Fleamont, SJ, Gilroy and cut over Hecker or further south and barely touch your small ring. Not terribly scenic though, but then again, you would be doing a lot of the same roads just to get to Los Gatos -- or equally unscenic roads before you hit the hills.

The mile "gravel trail" you mention was where I used to go shooting when I was in grade school. My friend Pat had a single-shot .22, and we'd shoot cans near the spillway. Probably a little too dense with upper-crust joggers to do that now. Kindergarten for me was at the Lexington Ave. School: http://www.losgatosca.gov/ImageRepos...cumentID=10916 Rode my trike up there every day from downtown. The family drug store back in the day: https://www.cardcow.com/images/set609/card01124_fr.jpg Ah, the good old days. I'd move back if I had a few billion dollars.


-- Jay Beattie.