Rule #5 and the Big Ring complex: why shifting into your small gear isn't so bad.

Almost all of us have heard of it:  the ever permeating, all to repeated words composing Rule #5.  "Harden the fuck up!" is such an integral facet of all competitive cycling disciplines (particularly road racing) that it is incredible that more cyclists have not suffered from negligence and or oblivion induced death.  To be unrealistic with our physical and sometimes mental capabilities is seemingly synonymous with the 5th rule of the Velominati's list of etiquette that helps constitute much of modern attitudes.  Pertaining to the "hard man" of today's cycling world it goes without saying that "the bigger the better" is accurate in terms of your chain ring size.  As a male (and sometimes females too) the big ring becomes a direct corollary with the level of your man/womanhood and is often worn as a badge that signifies your capabilities.  The reality of the situation seems to be that very little time is actually spent in these unpractical chain ring sizes that sever as not much more than steep, downhill descenting acceleration facilitators.  When grinding into oblivion to maintain the bad ass status, many hinder more so than benefit their cycling abilities and experiences at the expense of cool points.  Is the big ring really all that bad ass and important after all?

 

 

A mortal getting support from his friends as he
experiences a big ring induced, near death experience.

 

Riding within your abilities

 

If we are all being honest with ourselves we have to come to acknowledge that we have our own unique limits.  No level of our cycling ability should in any way be superimposed over the achievements of professionals and well trained riders that we strive to parallel.  All of us are simply at our own unique, individual levels of fitness and riding abilities as we must work within such parameters in order to ride better, have more fun, mitigate unnecessary injury and improve efficiency.  Acknowledging where you stand physical should ultimately dictate how you make gearing selection, with little to zero regard for the choices of our fellow cycling counterparts.  How do you feel on your bike in that big ring?  Is it conducive to long stints of spinning on sections other than descents?  Do you ever actually spin out the big/little ring combination?  Could a smaller gearing selection generate more practical and usable gearing combinations for less isolated chain ring and cog wear?  All of these questions should be at the forefront of decisions regarding your big and little rings (or single ring for you 1x'ers) as we all ultimately need a bicycle that is practical to ride without hurting ourselves in the process of doing so.
 

These are not our legs.. so lets stop pretending already?

 

Shift already... Its ok... really..

 

The correlation between needing bailout gears to help you get up a hill and lacking ability as well as hardness is what in my opinion can be accredited to there being so many road bike re-sales in bike shops, Craig's List and Ebay alike.  Most people (myself included on my strongest days) can simply not turn a 52-50 x anything for any period of time that is worth noting.  Sure, maybe we can sustain a power output that moves us along at a decent clip utilizing such a ratio, but by the time its all said and done the likely hood that we would actually want to do it again would be slim to none.  Even many "compact" rings/cassettes are rather harsh even for many avid, fit cyclists.  How nice it would be to see "entry" level road bikes outfitted with something along the lines of a 30x46 double chain ring set.  Such gearing selection would help less fit or beginner cyclists acclimate to higher cadences and power outputs without doing so at the expense of overuse injuries such as tendonitis and unnecessary onset muscle soreness.  Having fun on a bicycle starts with being honest, getting practical and assessing your current cycling needs for the sake of not just your physical healthy, but mental sanity as well.  So please, take a look at your bike sometime and ask yourself if you are really doing yourself a service by running the setup as you do, or simply holding yourself back and making a fool out of yourself in the process of being stubborn while doing so.

Not a roadie, not a mountain biker, just a cyclist.

Being that I am not looking, it becomes quite alright that I can't seem to find a real place in the cycling world within which to be compartmentalized.  Sure, I spend lots of time riding on dirt as well as logging plenty of road miles throughout the year, but there seems to be a lack of people to ride with considering the fact that I refuse to choose purely one riding style over the other while often incorporate the two in single rides.  Though the gravel/adventure bike scene has been the hottest thing to hit the market as of late and helps to slightly blur the lines between off vs on road cycling, there still seems to be a road/mountain biker dichotomy that splits the cycling world like a razor blade.  Take your pick; Peleton or Dirt Rag magazine, chamois or shorts, SPD cleats/shoes or platform pedals.  There is very much a black and white, one vs the other mentality that plagues the industry and only perpetuates the division between what at the end of the day are often like minded individuals.  Many of us clearly enjoy riding bicycles, being outdoors and enjoying the wonderful virtues of nature while appreciating high quality things in life such as good food, coffee and beer/wine.  So what is it about a simple thing such as big vs small tires that has us forming cliques, stigmas and often deliberate avoidance and or omission of one an other's presence?

Above is Pauline ferrand-prévot (center), the first woman to hold the road,
 mountain and cyclocross world championships all at one time. 

You ride a bike? Me too..

After having worked in a bicycle shop for the last two months (a very down to earth one mind you), I have seen self proclaimed cyclists of virtually every orientation come through and spread their wings.  From the uber hip, fashionable (?), fixed gear riding youngsters to the snobby, everything-retro-is-better proselytizing grouch and the conversely (and sometimes not so much) well financed, ultra high tech loving road and mountain cyclists, I have watched as they come, spoken their language, and gone.  Bits of dialogue I pick up on range from an absolute religious like worship for tech and new gear, to seemingly rare utterances of praise for the joy the act of cycling in and of itself.  Whispers of things that are undoubtedly indicative of a cyclists attempt at identifying with fill-in-the-blank genre become all to solidified after correlating the talk with the walk.  There is a style and swagger behind the various cycling sub-genres that have genius marketing schemes capitalizing on and further compounding the sub-culture mentality within cycling.  Books such as Bicycle Tribes have come to identify, but (inadvertently?) perpetuate the dissemination of cyclist sects within which one can relate to, and then ultimately become assimilated within.  Conforming to social, cycling, eating and drinking habits, the cyclist who identifies her/himself as a one particular walk of rider vs another has not only hindered their ability to congregate within other cyclists, but literally and figuratively confines their cycling style and riding boundaries.  There are certain unspoken rules and style dos and donts within the cycling community that very much compose the core backbone of what it means to be a roadie or a Mountain bike.  It is the dissolution of such dichotomies that interest me as a cyclist, mechanic and writer.

A cyclist stands by her commuter; a mountain bike equipped with racks for toting, drop bars 
for speed and big, plush tires for comfort. (Image courtesy of http://bikecommutechallenge.com/)

 

Walking the walk

It doesn't take much to spread the good vibes of cyclist inclusion.  Go out on that all day ride with the "roadies" and get your ass kicked a bit while showing them how much fun you are able to have on your not so pure bred road bike.  You could always invite your "fixie only" riding friend to join you on a slightly more adventurous ride to broaden the horizons.  What about taking that "gravel grinder" bike of yours out on some rougher trails and splicing in some love for the die hard mountain bikers?  We all need people to come in and shake things up a bit, blending good styles and aspects of cycling from all genres.  If riding a single speed road bike while wearing tall socks with SPD (mountain cycling) shoes, a messenger bag, lycra shorts and a skateboarding helmet is your thing; please, by all means.  As half of the struggle here is a style war, the further we remove ourselves from various cliques the more we can allow ourselves to be where we want, riding how we really want to with a hopefully increasing number of like minded individuals.