Manatees Roar into the 20s! CLOSED (Page 84)

Sorry I missed today, I had an appt with the doc. Standard dermatologist appt, she gets her pound of flesh every visit

After 8 months of waiting, I finally got my Kiwami Race Team Kit over the weekend.  When we turned in our forms last October they asked us to put down the date of our first race so they could prioritize and get gear out to the people racing early in the year first.  I knew that by putting June 6th as my first race I was dooming myself to be the last person to get my gear, but I didn't think it would show up on at 11:00 AM on the 6th of June (when my race would have started at about 7:30 AM.). Good thing that race was canceled.  :-)   

I used to value saving money over color coordination, but since my required purchases after the first 2-3 years dropped to about zero and I haven't had anything new for about two years I made sure that everything was blue to stick with the Boy Blue theme.  :-)  When you haven't had anything new in a while you get really excited so thanks for bearing with my excitement.   

P.S.  I didn't know my first 5 years in the sport that there were application processes to get on the triathlon product race teams.  After my last race in September I was looking for goals/plans for 2020 to keep me motivated and enjoying the sport and learned that there were dozens of teams accepting applications for the following year.  I obviously decided to apply for a team and can't believe it took me so long to figure out how these teams work.  :-)

There are easier ways to lose weight, you know.

Seriously, I hope that it went well.

After some gravel riding last week, I have questions.

I have a Cx bike that I used for my exploration. I read before that Cx gearing is not really gravel gearing. I know that I ran out of gears quickly on one of the rides and that on all of my rides I was in the small ring up front.  In fact, I don't think that I used the big ring at all on any of these rides. I don't 100% understand bike gearing though, so I could use some help.

Cx setup

Crankset: Shimano RS500, 46/36t, 172.5 mm
Cassette: Shimano 105 5800, 11spd, 11-32t

It looks like gravel/GRX uses a 48-31 crankset or a 46-30 crankset.  So I guess the 36 on the cross bike is too big, right? And maybe the 32 on the cassette is too small?

Thanks, it went fine. this is a twice a year thing for me.

Go outside, they said. It'll be good for you, get some exercise, breath the fresh air. Yeah, well, my fair skin combined with high UV = the worlds worst weight loss plan

After 8 months of waiting, I finally got my Kiwami Race Team Kit over the weekend.  When we turned in our forms last October they asked us to put down the date of our first race so they could prioritize and get gear out to the people racing early in the year first.  I knew that by putting June 6th as my first race I was dooming myself to be the last person to get my gear, but I didn't think it would show up on at 11:00 AM on the 6th of June (when my race would have started at about 7:30 AM.). Good thing that race was canceled.  :-)   

I used to value saving money over color coordination, but since my required purchases after the first 2-3 years dropped to about zero and I haven't had anything new for about two years I made sure that everything was blue to stick with the Boy Blue theme.  :-)  When you haven't had anything new in a while you get really excited so thanks for bearing with my excitement.   

P.S.  I didn't know my first 5 years in the sport that there were application processes to get on the triathlon product race teams.  After my last race in September I was looking for goals/plans for 2020 to keep me motivated and enjoying the sport and learned that there were dozens of teams accepting applications for the following year.  I obviously decided to apply for a team and can't believe it took me so long to figure out how these teams work.  :-)

After some gravel riding last week, I have questions.

I have a Cx bike that I used for my exploration. I read before that Cx gearing is not really gravel gearing. I know that I ran out of gears quickly on one of the rides and that on all of my rides I was in the small ring up front.  In fact, I don't think that I used the big ring at all on any of these rides. I don't 100% understand bike gearing though, so I could use some help.

Cx setup

Crankset: Shimano RS500, 46/36t, 172.5 mm
Cassette: Shimano 105 5800, 11spd, 11-32t

It looks like gravel/GRX uses a 48-31 crankset or a 46-30 crankset.  So I guess the 36 on the cross bike is too big, right? And maybe the 32 on the cassette is too small?

We had a great time meeting you and Jim and Raven. Thanks so much for spending the afternoon with us and for taking us to Hickory Nut Gorge Brewery.

I mentioned the gravel ride that I did the the parkway (Wash Creek Road) -- from North Mills River Rec Area to the parkway. It was all seated climb on the way up. I rode on the BRP a bit and turned back when I got to a tunnel that required lights.

Today, I road Fletcher Creek Road, also from the Mills River Rec area (but we left from the Spencer Gap parking area rather than the bottom). It was a quiet ride -- 100% gated forest road. It looks like a lot of people may take the single track to Hendersonville Reservoir Road because after that turn off, Fletcher Creek Road was really overgrown.

Photos of both rides in training blog.

I believe the general thought process on gravel is bigger ranges of gears, so the Shimano 105 11-34 cassette might give you a bit more hill attack, as would a 46/30 crankset. Since you mentioned that you were spinning out, I wouldn't think you would want to go any higher then the 46 on the crankset. Were I you, I'd look at the crankset and see what it would take to change the 36 out to a 34, 32 or even 30 if it available. And possibly drop the 46 as well, although at some point you might want that bigger option for descending or riding flatter terrain. Granted, the cassette change would give a bigger range of options but it sounds like the hills were the issue. I believe that standard triathlete thinking is to have as small a difference in rpm between gears. This kinda flies in the face of gravel thinking, which is higher highs and lower lows are good, due to terrain and the variety of ups and downs. Uphill on asphalt can be a whole lot different than uphill in peanut butter or sand. 

I'll have to look at what I am running. We are in the same boat, I am using a Cyclocross bike (10 years old) for my gravel grinding. It has had some work done, I believe the cassette had been swapped from original. One last thought, you know, so you get all two cents worth. I find myself riding some real crap on my gravel bike and some nice asphalt. The bigger range is more desirable to me then optimal rpms. I actually find myself using nearly all my gears on most gravel bike rides, which has raised the smiles per miles ratio a bunch.  Also, keep in mind that hills are a foreign entity to me!

I'll be honest, for the descending on the steeper parts, I was mostly trying to not die.  The issue was running out of gears on the climb. I was actually fairly comfortable on the Wash Creek climb. That one was mostly 2% with a stretch of 5% and very small section steeper than that.  MTB project topped it out at 11%. I'm not sure that's accurate. The Bent Creek Gap climb, however, I ran out of gears almost right away and had to power up it.  It was going along fine at 2-3% and then it kicked up to 10% or more for the last 2+ miles.  

I guess I need to decide how much I want to spend on this bike before selling it and getting and actual gravel bike. ;-)