Originally Posted by
John E
I began cycling when 100 gear-inches (52/14 or 48/13) was a standard top gear, although one still saw an occasional 94 incher (49/14), and a few racing bikes had 108 (52/13). Having never found a real need for anything higher, I currently run top gears of 45/13 (UO-8 transportation beater), and 49/14, 50/14, 47/13 (three road bikes, 94 to 98 gear-inches). I run 104 gear-inches (48/13 on 26" wheels) on the mountain bike. Omitting the high gears that seem fashionable today allows one to have both desirably low bottom gears and reasonable gaps between the ratios. The proposed 46/12 should provide all the top gear you really need -- I would obviously go with 46/13 or 50/14 myself.
Yeah, I agree. I ran a 13-29 10-speed Campagnolo cassette with 50/34. I would spin out the 50-13 around 32-34 mph, and by then I was coasting downhill anyway.
So I assumed that the 11-28 in 11-speed standard cassettes were "marketing".
But I do find two uses for the 50-11:
1. I can cross chain to the 34-12 (since it's not the final cog), and avoid a front chainring shift. That extends the 34 chainring's speeds up past 20 mph.
2. On really long downhills, it's nice to soft pedal in the 50-11, to keep my legs moving.