Originally Posted by Hermes

burnthesheep I am no longer do mass start races but I do HC races either mass start or time trial from time to time. I have a 50/34 on my road bike and an 11 speed 11/32 cassette. I may switch to an 11/25 for some hill climb like the GMR that has a steady 6% grade or I am looking for a particular gear combination that yields the cadence I want for the speed I can maintain. The only time I would like a 53 on the front is for low cadence interval work on flat terrain and in general, I do that on my time trial bike. Setting up gearing on bikes seems to me race specific if one is going to optimize gearing selection. Big gear in the front and big gear in the back is the lowest friction and least drive train losses.