Compact versus Standard crankset on the TT rig

I've been using a compact on my TT bikes for five years now. It works well for me. I'm a naturally high cadence rider and it allows me to ride a tighter spacing on the rear and keep my cadence at a comfortable 100 rpm.

If you prefer riding at lower cadences, you'll probably find yourself running out of gears. I have a lot of friends who ride at 80 rpm and need to go to 54 to 56 tooth rings on the big ring to avoid running out of gears.

scott

Nice! I'm a high cadence cyclist and a natural hill climber. Thanks for the info!!!

I personally love the 50/34 12-25 combo. I can get around any course without my butt leaving the seat. The proper gearing, makes riding steady (low VI) much easier. A lot of bikes are now coming with compacts as standard gearing.

The group I train with 90% use compact cranks and most of these guys have FTPs in the 280-330 range....they've got some serious horse power.

I love my ritchey compacts on my TT. I have a 11-28 SRAM on the back. Very seldom need the 28 but it's there if I need it.  I should add that I live in a fairly hilly area- foothills of the blue ridge mtns.

One thing that having the compact cranks helps me with is that I rarely now have to come out of the big ring and never have I run out of gears by having the 11.

The only thing that matters is finding a gearing combo that will allow you to stay within the cadence range that you prefer and enable you to not run out of gearing on any hills or windy courses that you may do.  There is no right or wrong answer to whether or not using a compact is "right or wrong" for anyone.

I'm a spinner.  With that said, I have no problem maintaining 100 cadence with my 177.5 length 53/39 cranks in any race situations.  On hills I can comfortably spin up them at a min. of 70 cadence except all but the most brutal ones.  And then I'm standing anyways.