TCR Rider

My trainer bike has 10 speed Ultegra 52-36 crank with a 12-25 cassette. The bike is on a Tacx Neo. I've been doing a lot of hill climbing on Zwift and find myself in the 36-25 more than I care to admit. I can get up the Radio Tower climb but honestly I could use a few more gears. I'm considering swapping out the crankset for a compact (50-34) with an 11-28 cassette. I don't really see any downside to this move. Am I missing something?

jch3n

If you don't find yourself spinning out on fast descents too often then, no, nothing wrong with switching to a compact.

TCR Rider

That's not too much of an issue for me but I thought about it and going from a 12 to an 11 on the cassette should mitigate that a bit.

Steve B.

If you have a braze-on front derailer, check that you can drop it a bit. If clamp on, no problem.

TCR Rider

I could adjust the front der but there may be a problem there. To get access to the fastening bolt on the derailleur I need to move the bottle cage out of the way and that bolt is stripped. I was just letting sleeping dogs lie and leave it alone. Now I may have to figure out a way to get it out without damaging the CF frame.

f4rrest

I thought the difficulty setting in Zwift was essentially the same.

Second hand info...

TCR Rider

Difficulty setting explained

https://zwiftinsider.com/using-the-t...ting-in-zwift/

f4rrest

I'm just relaying what I read here yesterday. It seems much simpler than swapping the chainring.

seau grateau

Compacts are cool. I can't sprint for **** and I descend like a grandma, so I never spin out anyway.

Kontact

It seems crazy to have to modify a bike to get it to ride properly in a simulated environment.

San Pedro

Why not just try a different cassette in the rear first, maybe something that has a 32 on it?

Racing Dan

Why cant home trainers be set to emulate a lower gear or emulate any gear for that matter? Lower resistance, but more RPMs is the same thing as High resistance and few RPMs.

TCR Rider

Personally I'd rather have a more realistic feel going up the hills since there's no difficulty setting in the real world. After all that's why I ride in the pain cave now to help hit the spring stronger.😉

znomit

Some smilies?

Abe_Froman

?

You do know that in the real world, you can't ride bikes inside while outside right?

I'm a bit confused. Are you saying you can adjust resistance in Zwift to emulate a smaller gear on climbs but choose not to for some reason, or are you saying that adjustment is not possible?

afonsogrf

Would not it be better to just change the cassette before and only after changing the crankset?

f4rrest

I switched from 12-25 39-53 to what you're proposing.

On outdoor rides, it's much easier to get up the mountain, but I do spin out going down.

...or maybe I'm no longer eager to race around blind corners on the open road. Not sure.

99Klein 

So, if you don't want to dial your trainer setting back to emulate more gears, why not build a trainer specific bike. Or better yet, dial your trainer back and slowly bring it back up to 100%?

Watts are watts. You have a good trainer, why not dial it back until you become strong enough to climb it at whatever cadence you want?

Sorry, this makes no sense to me. You'd be surprised at how many have their trainer setting dialed back. It is a VIDEO GAME after all.

Not trying to impress anyone, I'm out for the workout and to stay in shape in the off season.

TCR Rider

So, if you don't want to dial your trainer setting back to emulate more gears, why not build a trainer specific bike. Or better yet, dial your trainer back and slowly bring it back up to 100%?

As I said in my initial post this is a trainer specific bike.

Sy Reene

Effectively, this is what the "trainer difficulty" setting does. Although using lower trainer difficulty setting will make hills feel easier than in the real world if going by Zwift's gradient indicators, just because you can spin well or run a lower gear, won't make your speed in Zwift any faster than what Zwift is calculating your speed should be based on the watts/kg you're putting out for the gradient shown.

This implies you already have your trainer difficulty set at 100%. If your outdoor riding actually contains much of the same gradients as Zwift's courses do, then by all means get a different chainset for your bike, or cassette for your trainer. What does your road bike have for gearing? There's probably some sense in having your trainer and trainer bike configured similar to your outdoor bike.

TCR Rider

I'm not overly concerned with spinning out on descents just climbing for the moment. I'm still coming back from a knee replacement so my normally piddly wattage output is further compromised while I work on getting back my leg strength.

99Klein 

My bad. Sorry I missed that. Than I say do it if that's what you want.

tomato coupe

Let me get this right; you want to change your gearing to make the Radio Tower climb easier, but you don't want to change the setting on the trainer to make the climb easier, because that wouldn't be realistic?

Yes.

TCR Rider

Not to necessarily make it easier, I can get up all the climbs in Zwift with the 36-25 combo, but to be able to do it at a higher cadence instead of grinding it out at 65 rpms. I hope that clarifies it for you.

TCR Rider

My outdoor bike has DA Di2 11 speed with the gearing I am looking at putting on the trainer ride. 50-34 with 12-28. That's as close as I can get to the outdoor bike without upgrading to an 11 speed which I couldn't justify doing on a trainer bike.