Originally Posted by
rutan74
It is not flat where I live either. We do have some flats but mainly rolling roads. 50-34 and 11-32. I rarely now venture into the small ring unless there is an extended climb of 1 mile or more. Now, I cannot turn the big ring on one of those hills at 90rpm but I manage to get up them in the 70's.
I would concur that it mainly deals with what type of terrain you are riding on. When I rode in Florida, it was flat as a pancake and folks would probably look at my 11-32 and laugh. If I moved down there, I would probably opt out to 11-28. With the exception of Clermont in Florida, there are no hills. Nothing like the Blue Ridge Parkway down there.
john
I'm in the Upstate, near Spartanburg!
I was signed up for the Tour de Lowcountry (cancelled due to Covid concerns, of course) and checked the routes on RideWithGPS. I think the biggest "climb" on the metric century was about 0.5 miles long, and peaked out at 3%. I swapped out to an 11-25. I'm hoping this pandemic will be under control by the time Festivelo rolls around, but I'm not signing up until it gets closer. (I still have the corncob, just in case!)