Rear cassette choice for both Kona AND Placid
Quick Q please as my searches have not yielded results: running compact cranks in front, if I wanted to get one 10-speed rear cassette for both Ironman Lake Placid AND Kona (lotteried in), what would it be? 12-25 or 12-27 as per Coach Rich I think but not sure if that's Kona-specific. Please advise, thanks!
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Jonathan,
Do you ride with power? What's you FTP and W/kg right now? If no power you might have until you have a closer estimate on your time.
I did lake placid in 2004 with a 53/38 25 in the back 8 speed and died. No power at the time 196 lbs and LSD training. I finished the bike in 7:48 with some cranping issues in the legs on the last lap so it was not all bike fitness. I figure the pacing and lack of salt cost me at least a 6:5X time the LSD approach did the rest. I would have loved to have a 27 in lake placid that year or been 10-20 lbs lighter.
Depending upon the above answers you could go from a 25-26 or 27.
Gordon
My advice is if you are in doubt get the 27, as I have yet to hear someone complain they had too many gears on race day.
I do not know anything about the Kona course but know that you will want that 27 for the LP course. Tell you what, if you do not use it I will buy you a beer after. Oh course i will buy you a beer if you do, so its a pretty safe bet for me either way. I will likely race with the 11-26 again. Do not limit yourself to the shimano choices, check out what sram has. I am a big fan of the 11-26 and would even consider the 11-28 if I was doing something with stupid climbing. I will likely be rocking a 12-27 at American Zofingen and wishing I had a 29 or 31.
Had the 12-21 on the bike today, thing is great for the trainer, sucked it big time for the local hill climb.
I have a completely unrelated question, but since I have TWO Wicked Smart Members + other knowledgable people here: So my Outseason final 10K today actually yielded a *lower* vDot than my most recent OS 5K Run test from 6 weeks ago, which itself was slightly lower than the 5K test 6 weeks before that. Fatigue may have been an issue during the later OS. My question is, since I run with live pace via a Garmin , which set of data do I use in the Data Tool to calculate ranges going forward in the 12 week Race Prep phase coming up? My most recent 5K? 10K? Best 5K? Best half-mary? Let Chris G decide?
Thanks so much guys. Love this freaking team, always there right when you need them most.
Liebs
Joe
Nothing at Kona is steeper than LP. On my 650 wheel TT bike, I use 53/39 (equal to a compact crank on a 700 wheel) and 12-27 with no difficulty there. I'm probably in the 3.5 w/kg range, for reference.
Chris must have missed this so this is my take. The 11 allows for you to get some extra speed without spinning out on downhills. I know that Lieto uses an 11 in Kona for the down hill section out of Hawi.
Gordon
If you're a non-pro on any US Ironman course, you don't need an 11t. Our advice is to just coast whenever you are going faster than about 34mph. With compact up front and an 12t, I would spin out (cadence too fast to actually put much power into the pedals) at about 38mph. I ride a 26-11t with all of the climbing I do in the mountains here because we have some very long descents where I'd like to be able to pedal up past 38mph. With the 11t I spin out at about 41-42mph.
But none of that matters because, as an IM athlete, you'll want to coast above ~34mph. You many not even use the 12t.
IMUSA has a 7 mile descent after 7 miles of rollers to get out of town. The descent is VERY fast. I've hit 49-50mph on a borrowed road bike. Very sure I'd be north of 50mph on a tri bike with aerokit. You don't need to be pedaling at all for most of that descent. Just get aero, relax, drink a bit, dodge the squirrely riders, etc.
I like the 11-26 be because I like the spacing on it, for sure do not need the 11 but it is fun to play with. For LP I do not need a 27 with 34 up front either. Perfect would really be 12/26 but although I have a bunch of cassettes I do not have one of those.
I ended up going with a Wilier Tri-Crono with full 10-speed Ultegra (Chris, you've seen my current FrankenBike in person - the "metal bike" as you call it - so as you know I am upgrading from full aluminum and 9-speed Ultegra from 1996.) I'll be using my current carbon cockpit, levers, rims, Adamo saddle, Look pedals, and what the hell I upgraded the bar-end shifters to Zipp Vuka R2Cs. Get to train on it and tweak it over multiple fit sessions over the next 6 months before Kona. Will race it for Eagleman and Placid.
Me happy.
Next year = upgrade to power. Full boat => Powertap or Quarq, Joule or Edge, etc etc. But this upgrade was about joining the current millenium's bike population in as cost-effective a way possible, buying a rig I will not want to upgrade out of over the next 5-10 years at least (got 15 years out of the Cannonwhale!).