Originally Posted by
PeteHski
For me the variation in my fitness during the year would never warrant changing my gear range. Even pulling a single gear higher at the same cadence is a big step in terms of power/fitness. When I’m less fit I just drop into a lower gear or reduce my cadence slightly. The difference may only be in the order of 20-30W, but it is massive in terms of fitness.
So I gear for the terrain I’m riding rather than changes in my fitness. As an extreme, my mtb obviously has much lower gearing than my road bike. As we have a lot of steep climbs, my road bikes all have compact doubles with 1:1 lowest gear. On a steep climb I can often put out more power spinning in a lower gear anyway. Look at the gravel gearing Roglic used in the Giro mountain TT. No shame there! 😂
Since I started using a power meter, I soon discovered that grinding bigger gears up hills subjectively feels more powerful (higher pedal forces), but often results in lower power output because of the lower cadence. Remember that Power = Pedal Torque x Cadence.
I have found that rather than turning big gears on a climb, I am actually faster when I gear down and increase cadence. I still like to challenge myself when climbing and go for PRs but as I age, I am also slowly becoming more aware of energy conservation (VS constantly pushing myself) so I have something left in the tank for the next day. The two sets of gears are on different bikes. The bike I usually have on the Kickr is the one with the lower gears which I got out for summer rides. The bike is actually lighter than my endurance bike but forces me to climb harder on the steeps because of it.