In the Pipeline ...

When trying to express my exasperation with compact gearing not supporting half-step gearing, or maybe "banded" half-step, because only the middle of the range half-steps, I realized I wasn't being very clear or persuasive with a new rider the other day.

Neither 50/34 nor 50/36 chainrings make very nice gearing. 50/38 makes BEAUTIFUL gearing, but the shit-heads at Shimano just don't seem to get it. The current gearing strategy seems to be "here's a gaggle of gears, and here's another gaggle of gears, and they have nothing to do with each other". Pathetic. The speed chart below is for a cadence of 80, despite it being labeled gear ratio, although the latter is irrespective of cadence, this, paired with the RWGPS speed histogram, is a better intro to gearing, so I rather hastily adapted it.

Note how 13 of 20 usable gears here  participate in 1/2-step gearing

If you choose a slightly different set of chainrings, and to a lessor extent cassettes, you have almost exactly the same range and granularity, BUT, when you get into the gearing range where you spend most of your time, between every gear on your big ring there's a gear on your small ring.

IMHO, choosing between 80 & 88 rpms for any length of time is unacceptable. You should be able to find a gear that will make the speed, and consume the power that makes your legs happy at, in my case, 84-85 RPMs by shifting a bit, making full use of Shimano's 3-gear change on a full cable pull in back. Also, the design goal of Shimano's HG system, circa 1989, was to support simultaneous front & rear shifting, so no surprise, this is now easy-peasy.

How do you find out which gears you spend the most time in? RWGPS makes that easy with their speed-time histogram. Here's mine for a recent ride.

The intricacies of good gearing is kind of a black art, but I wrote the spreadsheet that made the above  gear-chart 10+ years ago, and it's very helpful in rooting out good gear combos. Once you catch on the question becomes "why NOT use half-step gearing". It costs you nothing, or very close to it, reduces fatigue and harvests more power and speed from the same effort. Bottom line, I will be buying a new 52/39 crank (yes, I had to buy the 39T stand-alone and put the 36 on top of the stack of other useless rings already in the drawer, but that's only about $35, so very cheap) I'm buying a whole new crank for $209 because the chainrings alone cost that much, and I'll keep the 50/34 set up for climbing. Swapping cranks is a 20 minute chore, tops,  these days.

Handlebar Setups

Next, I've been intimately involved in the subtleties of handlebars in a way I really never paid much attention to before. My old carbon bars are now in the bin in preference to a better fit. Turns out the stem, stack height, bar, shape of the shifters and aerobars all come into play when trying to get a really good fit.

Sorry for the tease, but these are both pretty involved subjects, and if not for nursing a bum left knee the last week, I wouldn't have time to work on writing, so I hope you'll bear with me as I gather my thoughts and exhibits.

Cheers!