Comments on: Commuting 101: Using Lower Gears

By: Bike Shop Girl

Bike Shop Girl — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:45:03 +0000

I know from a racing standpoint, a harder gear with lower cadence can slow down your heartrate. Those two may go hand in hand

By: Beginner Cycling

Beginner Cycling — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:48:54 +0000

As one of the other commenters mentioned, I too am curious whether high RPMs or high gears tend to cause more sweating. May have to do some research on my own for that question!

By: Karl McCracken

Karl McCracken — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:55:59 +0000

Low gears = a Good Thing

In training, I tend to ride a 90-110rpm, but on race day, I lock right into 101-112rpm (WORK those shifters!). I can keep it up longer, go faster, and find that when I get off the bike, I’m warmed up & ready to run.

My Sturdy Commuting Bike doesn’t have the tightness of ratios to maintain that though, so when commuting, I ride 80-100rpm. I try to keep it in the to half of this band, but don’t fret so much.

In fact, I’m pretty much obsessed with cadence – it’s THE number I pay any attention to on the cyclecomputer. Whenever I’m out I’ll invariably pass someone struggling along into a headwind / up a hill at something like 60 rpm

By: will

will — Sat, 31 May 2008 08:15:50 +0000

Absolutely,

This strange macho fixation with using big gears on hills is silly.

As someone who spends a lot of time on long Alps climbs, I wouldn’t get caught dead without my dinner-plate back ring.

It’s the difference between enjoyment and bonk.

The othe day even some pros were using a 28 on the back in the Giro mountain time trial.

By: Avraham

Avraham — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:39:27 +0000

My first (partial) commute (about a year ago) I started out fast and my legs tired after a few minutes. I knew I was out of shape, but that made no sense. Then I remembered reading about cadence, continued with a more moderate pace, and finished my commute (35 minutes).

By: ethan

ethan — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:12:50 +0000

Commuting to work by bike has really begun to change how I think about biking. It doesn’t have to be a mad dash. I don’t have to work up a sweat. I don’t have to be a badass. I have to pay attention to traffic. I have to enjoy the ride.

My ride home is almost all up hill. I’m still evaluating the best route, but I have to admit that I gave up on the highest gears really quick.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:12:04 +0000

I have a pretty big hill on my return commute, so I’ve learned to take better advantage of my lower gears in the last year, but I think I can probably do better still. For whatever reason my tendency has been to never use my lowest chainring (maybe for the same macho reasons you mentioned above). Tomorrow on the way home I’m going to experiment with using it and upping my cadence.

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:07:59 +0000

I have a big hill to climb on my return commute every day and I’m definitely better about using my low gears with a year’s experience under my belt, but this is a good reminder that I should continue to experiment. I almost never use my smallest chainring- tomorrow I’m going to see what I can do by using it and ramping up my cadence.

By: bikesgonewild

bikesgonewild — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:40:39 +0000

…you’ll notice young mr contador used a 34 X 30 as a low gear in the short (12.9 km) extremely steep TT on monday’s stage of il giro…

…being that the man’s job is racing a bicycle, i guess it’s fair to say he needed that very low gear for his commute to maintain that maglia rosa…

…as an aside, i’d love to know what kind of cadence contador was pedaling at, on the steepest sections (24 %) of packed gravel…

…& back when watching armstrong & ullrich going head to head whether on a climb or powering along in a TT, it was almost painful to see jan pushing those big gears…somehow it just made sense that lance would recover faster…

By: la

la — Tue, 27 May 2008 02:22:32 +0000

29% grade? Do you bring a ladder with you?

I have often noticed better results when spinning in lower gears (I used to almost never use the big ring on my compact crank on the road bike, even at 25mph in group rides). I think I got messed up by some training videos I did though, time to speed the cadence back up.

I did NOT know that it burned more fat though. That’s definitely a motivator for me!

As far as standing on climbs….I only do it on the MTB when I didn’t downshift when I should have, and on the road bike when I need a burst of speed going uphill. Very inefficient, but it lays power down pretty quickly.