Hammering in the Fall

Orange Crush

I've been messing around with this bike for a good year now.  I had to learn what gear was most convenient to being an all around gear.  I'm sure Corey Godfrey knows.  I'm not sure I found it yet...42 x 17.  I did decide that 170 mm cranks were the ticket.  Two fold why, first, my left hip is not working well.  It's my hip that was broken, and then roughly 10 years later needed Labrum surgery to clean it up.  It was shredded and my Trochanter needed to be reduced.  A story for another time...but what I have discovered is that shorter cranks feel better because it decreases the acute angle when bent over and riding.  Second, I appreciate the smaller circle that the short cranks make and seems easier to spin with my old decrepit legs.  This allows me to spin a smaller gear a bit faster I think.  Still a 42 x 16 might be better yet because with the Nebraska tailwinds I get spun out fast!  Anyway, the bike is a hodge podge of parts that were laying around.  One thing for sure is that the old cup and ball bearings of the square taper crank set with an old Shimano BB is by far a smoother bearing surface then the sealed bearings found in most crank and BB sets of modern cranks. You spin these cranks backwards and they spin without much effort.


But that's not really what I'm thinking about...No, I'm reminiscing about training in Nebraska on a 13-19 six speed cassette with a 42 inner ring. 


Yesterday heading out for a ride on Orange beast with my wife Jen, reminded me of days past in the early 80's with Doug L., Kendall D. and David  C. out hammering on South 14th Street...we were in the country at that point already.  Now it's essentially suburbia with lots of traffic. Yesterday was a super strong south wind and Jen and I rolled out South 14th towards Saltillo. ( I really need to quit riding on 14th street, so dangerous with all the traffic on the road now!) I was mashing that 42 x 17 and thinking that this was about the easiest gear we used to run, how did we do that?  Now we live in a standard 39 x 11-23.  Maybe that big gear made us stronger?  On the flip side, This last Monday on our CCR Labor day ride we had a 25 MPH tail wind on the way home.  I was in my 53 x 11 the whole way.  How did we do it when we only had a 53 x 13? 


One final comment - I love the old geometry of this bike ( about a 1978- 1980 I think) with the short top tube.  The bike sprints and corners so nicely!  Fun bike to ride.


I'm hoping that being forced to spin will translate to a more efficient pedal stroke when I'm Time Trialing for Triathlons.