Originally Posted by
AllWeatherJeff
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I developed severe patellar tendonitis training and racing (in big gears) as a junior in the late 1980's and it took more than a decade to finally get back the full use of my knees. When I got back onto a bike in 1998 it was withwith a large dose of preventative caution. And I decided that a ~100inch rollout was more than sufficient for the top end of my speed range, even on descents.
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I used to stand on the pedals to accelerate from where I stopped for a stop light, to power up hills, etc. Quit doing that about 8 to 10 years ago, now I always stay in the saddle and gear down. My knees are so much happier now.
On shallow downhills I like having a couple really high gears, but spend less than one percent of my time in those gears so they are not really that important to me. But last year I bought a new road bike, the highest gear was 50T chainring and 13T sprocket, I bought a new cassette to get a 12T sprocket, but I do not really need anything faster than that. But there are two long shallow hills I occasionally ride down where that high gear is really nice.