Very interesting insights to be gleaned here, reading all of these varied approaches to the problem of how best to get up and down hills. To add a bit more wood to the fire, I've found that I tend to cycle at a high cadence when going uphill, and a much lower cadence when on flats or downhill. It tends to be about 90-110 when on a climb as I find it less fatiguing as lactic acid does not build up in my legs (turning them into jelly) and on downhills since I don't need or like to go fast (I put the brakes on at about 30 mph - it's hard to enjoy the scenery when one needs to concentrate at higher speeds) I slow to about 60-70 and the change ups seems to let me last longer in a riding day. I break this of course, regularly, if the situation calls for shooting up a small hill and then use the last few seconds of the bottom of a slope to gain momentum with a frenzied spin.
Any comments on that? Might I be doing some of this upside down and backwards?
On a side note, I find small hills, whether gentle or steep, to be fun. It's the long mile long or longer gentle slopes that I find hard and when those long, long stretches turn steep - I find myself justified in appealing to the gods to place a miracle pub every mile. In fact, if you ask me, that is the problem with cycling in the US of A. Not enough pub density to call this a civilized country. But never mind, that's another topic.
with my 41 and 17 combo the lowest ratio is 17.5 gear inches. On longer steep hills I'd start out spinning and then as I tired, I found that as my cadence dropped I would hit about 4 miles per hour and find it not worth the taxation on my body to keep grinding up the hill on the bike. I was near where I'd find myself moving back and forth two or three feet on the road at those slow speeds and that's just not worth it with traffic. Getting off and pushing had me going at 2 to 2.5 miles per hour, so I felt that there was no real loss, and it would change up the muscles used and I felt that I could go all day that way longer.
So when I got back I bought a nice steel Surly ring, meaning to raise my lowest gearing up a bit. Looking at Sheldon Brown's calculator (
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-calc.html) it seems that the 17/43 gives a low of 18.3 to a high of 96.5. I've not been able to cycle for several years, so I have not yet bothered to install this ... but looking at those numbers, right away I think, I don't need that high a top end, and the bottom seems a very small change. Seeing how some of you approach this, I wonder if maybe I should not have a stab at the opposite direction? Maybe my problem was that the ratio was not low enough and I could not keep my cadence up. Hmmm. I wonder now.
Funny how so much effort, time and money is required for the much critical "ultimate" setup, eh? Wives just don't understand. Mine has even made the mistake of wondering out loud "why not just go ride it, as is?" Now that was hilarious.
