Best Road Bike Cassette For Hills

Road bike cassettes for climbing.

Best road bike cassette for hills. This is one cassette that played very well when it comes to a wide range of terrains. However on the newer 10 speed cassette systems mountain and road rear shifters and derailers are not interchangeable so in most cases you ll have to live with a maximum of the 30 tooth cog on your rear cassette. If you ride a lot of hills or struggle with hill climbing a cassette with a lower ratio largest sprocket 27 or more teeth may be beneficial. Our first best choice was the shimano 6800 ultegra 11 speed cassette.

Shimano 6800 ultegra 11 speed cassette click to see price. Shimano 6800 ultegra 11 speed cassette. How to fit and remove a sprocket cassette. Swapping one cassette for another is a straightforward job but you do need special tools.

In a ratio of 22 teeth on the smallest chainring and 34 teeth on the cassette s largest ring the ratio for pedal rotation to wheel rotation is 22 34 which is about 1 0 6 meaning your wheel goes through 6 10 of a rotation each. When selecting a cassette for your road bike ensure your derailleur can accommodate the largest sprocket. Best rear cassette for road bike. If you don t have these you can ask a bike shop to do the job for you.

Cadence the right gear ratio is the secret to uphill cycling if you find hills hard you have the most to gain through optimising your cadence and gear ratios. Most road bikes will come with 11 12 or 13 teeth on the smallest sprocket and then will have anywhere between 21 and 32 teeth on the largest sprocket. The disadvantage is that even with the best indexed gears it can be a struggle to have the shift to the middle ring and down to the inner ring work perfectly. Changing the cassette is the easiest way to introduce lower gears to your bike and it s only in recent years that cassettes with a largest sprocket of 30 or 32 tooth have been introduced to.

Road bike cassettes will have smaller sprockets with a smaller jump between the teeth sizes when compared to mountain bike cassettes. A cassette tool and a chain whip. It will allow you to keep spinning for longer rather than grinding. A good road bike for hills should have three chainrings in the front so you can switch to a very small chainring and very large cassette cog for the steepest hills.

My curve road bike drivetrain uses 50 34t front chainrings and an 11 42t cassette. The good news is that as long as you re using a cassette with 9 speeds or less this will work fine even with a road bike shifter.