Originally Posted by
Baby Puke
Sounds about right Taras. My roadbike is only for recovery and commuting, so I'm gonna stay same set up as track. Climbing??
I lived in an area right under a 300-400 foot escarpment (the Niagara Escarpment). Also at the time, I needed to do the racing because the nearest "real" track was Bromont (8 hrs), and then T-Town (8.5 hrs) was a nearly as close 2nd. This was before Bloomer Park (4hrs) came around which cut travel time in half from Bromont.
Originally Posted by
carleton
I'm a lot like Baby Puke, I would set up my road bikes to mimic my track position, including saddle position and even crank length. I'd buy the cheapest cranks I could find in the size I planned to race the following season. The only difference being the bars would be set at a comfortable height a few inches higher than track.
The first season I raced 165mm cranks, I put 165mm kid cranks on my road bike months before. Hills sucked, but I learned to carry high cadences like Taras mentioned. I even put 40cm bars on.
Hopping back and forth between bikes was easy.
This is what I would recommennd for a sprinter with no team/road obligations. If all one was racing were crits on the road, then you could get away with this as well.
Originally Posted by
carleton
But, as Taras says, it depends on what you are doing with your road bike. Southerfox, I recall you being a road racer, so maybe it's important enough to approach the two differently and if they come together, cool. But, for me (and maybe Baby Puke) the road bike is essentially a track bike with gears and brakes.
All that being said, some people simply can't feel the difference (in a good way).
Hills actually seemed easier for me on the smaller cranks. But you do learn to spin more with them as well. That goes back to the "Gain Ratio" that someone had mentioned a few months back. I threw the specifics of the differences out there because Southernfox did mention that she did some road racing. It's basically info for anyone to use so they can see why I had those differences, and decide whether or not they have similar differences in needs to warrant having slight changes between bikes.