Originally Posted by
Hermes
Junior gearing...fair unfair. All racers that made it to the pro level faced the junior gearing gauntlet. And I might add that another reason for JGs is to handicap the junior field so that juniors that grow faster would not have a gear advantage. Personally, I hate attempts to create a level playing field with rules such as that. And I include excluding TT bikes from stage races because it is too hard or too expensive to bring two bikes to a race. If you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
In the first point you make a good assessment, the only issue I saw with Jr gearing was that the brands weren't making any effort to support it. With 1x12 for my daughter jr. gearing was easy to achieve, 40t ring with 11-34 cassette on a 19mm internal rim width and 25c conti 5000s results in a perfect rollout. As of January she's running a 48/11-34 being more of a power rider than a spinner. But in Jr. races I think there's some legitimacy to having limits on the level of the equipment that shows up on the field. Living in the NYC area there are people who think nothing of slapping down thousands on the finest equipment for their kids while you have inner city kids on borrowed bikes that mostly fit. These kids will be disadvantaged on the road bikes they're on but TT bikes are in a totally different price class from what they're often getting and our sport is too elitist as it is. At the end of the day a set of aero bars and aero wheels, a proper helmet and a skin suit will make up most of the advantage, no need to restrict those.
OP, I didn't think there was a gear limit if they're not racing as a Jr and just enter the adult category. My kid just turned 12 so this hasn't been an issue to me. And, as someone else pointed out, this wasn't about leveling the playing field for Jrs, the desire was to limit the harm they would cause themselves. It'll be interesting to see some of the impact this has since most parents know nothing about crank length and you can see it in the younger kids trying to turn larger crank arms. But again, that's down to this sport being elitist and not giving a crap about Jrs, just try finding decent cranks for the kids to ride, they are few and far between.