Road Bike Gear Ratios For Hill Climbing

Gear ratios on touring bikes depend on a number of factors.

Road bike gear ratios for hill climbing. Most road bikes have either an 11 tooth or 12 tooth smallest cog and a largest cog with 23 25 26 teeth. On your rear wheel the gear ratios work out the opposite of on your chainrings. Overall speed for climbing a hill is dependent on the amount of power produced which is directly influenced by the gear ratio. Gear ratios can make or break your ride so choosing the right ones for you is vital to getting the most out of cycling menu expert road bike reviews and the latest road bike news features and.

Road bike cassettes for climbing. Even if you have a bike with a standard front chainset 53 39 and rear cassette of 25 which gives you a lowest gear ratio of 39 25 1 56 you could achieve a similar gear ratio to a bike with a compact chainset 50 34 with a rear cassette of 25 ratio of 1 36 by switching your rear cassette to a 29 tooth lowest gear ratio of 39 29 giving a ratio of 1 34. In other words smaller cogs fewer teeth on the rear correspond to you harder pedaling and bigger cogs more teeth correspond to the easier pedaling. For example strong experienced cyclists can use a high gear ratio while maintaining a good cadence to produce more than 200 watts of power while beginning or inexperienced riders reduce the gear ratio to produce about 100 to 200 watts.

If you wanted to fit an 11 34 cassette you d also need shimano s gs rear derailleur the 105 version c an be found for 36 which has a total capacity of 39t you d also need to fit a longer chain the shimano 105 one retails at 18 50 we ve found that this derailleur even works with a shimano 11 40t cassette 47 99 but don t tell shimano we said that. Let s take a closer look at the cranksets that offer better road bike climbing gears. The cyclist guide to the right gear ratios for climbing. If you haven t already become best friends with it you may need to start.

Road bike cassettes will have smaller sprockets with a smaller jump between the teeth sizes when compared to mountain bike cassettes. With all of the options available to today s road cyclists it is possible to produce gear ratios that are as small as 1 0 and as large as 5 0 with increments of 0 15 0 40. Praxis sub compact cranksets 48 32t praxis works has managed to fit sub compact chainrings 32t instead of 34t on their current cranksets despite using the same chainring dimensions as a compact crankset 110bcd. When the road starts heading upwards.

Similarly if you are growing in strength it might be time to spec larger gears to your bike.