StanSeven

I agree. I brought a cyclocross late fall for winter riding. The weather is another story. But I did use the cyclocross a good bit because it was fun off road. The gearing is perfect for what I did - mostly rides on the roads, with some dirt/gravel trails, and a few paths in the woods.

ColinL

Real men ride 52/42 with a six speed freehub, eh?

bikerjp

I doubt even Chuck Noris could spin that. Must be a photoshop.

Debusama

It really all depends on the size of your penis; if you’re a real man with big strong legs and a need for speed, you’ll go with the standard. It might also have something to do with the style of riding you do and where you ride. I’m sure some of the standard-riding studs in the Midwest would do better on a compact if they were to move to Colorado. There are plenty of people standing and mashing up hills in tall gears who would be able to climb longer and faster if they would sit down and spin as a compact would allow them to do. It’s also worth mentioning that many Standard drive trains use 12/25 or 12/27 cassettes and won’t help you go down hills any faster than a compact with an 11t cog.
I’ve got one bike with a standard and one with a compact, the biggest drawback I can see with the compact is that shifting between a 39/53 is smoother and easier than with a 34/50.

Zei

Wait. What?

eriku16

Compacts are the new triple and is an excuse for weak riders to stay weak.

Once upon a time, long time ago, I had 53/39 with a corn cob out back... yeah, remember them? The lowest "granny" I had was 53in and that was my bail out gear.

banerjek

But although we call a 39 standard nowadays, it wasn't that long ago that it would have been considered a compact...

AdelaaR

If that is Chuck's compact ... I wonder how many teeth his standard has.


Going up "de muur" last weekend I wondered if my lowest gear of 39/23 was giving me a high enough cadence and I started to think about getting a 12-25 cassette.

Stealthammer

I have both Standard and Compact setups on various road bikes because each has its own advantages. The Standard is better than Compact in all group ride situations, when I have a specific plan where I intend to ride, if I have a particular training workout planned, or if I plan to ride more aggressively. The Compact is better when I am just out for a casual ride, or when I have no plan on where I intend to ride and have no agenda.

The choice to go with a Compact was first made when I built a bike for more relaxed riding or for recreational purposes so I went with 50/34 - 11/28 gearing, whereas my standard road bikes generally use 53/39 - 11/26. The Compact really changed the character of the bike though, and I tend to enjoy the more relaxed pace that it encourages, so I put one on my Serrota T-Max (MTB) commuter as well. If I had to give up one or the other though, I would keep the Standard.

kleinboogie

When I bought my Quarq Cinqo I was still riding compact. For that much money I wanted options so I got the 110bcd PM and bought 52/36 Red Chainrings for it. It came with 50/34 force rings and I already had a Red Crankset with 50/34. That gave me a lot of options. If I had bought the 130bcd I really would have only had 1 option.

I mainly ride the 52/36 and I'm usually in the middle cogs in group rides and races that average 27-28mph and in sprints I'm never in the 11 cog so 52/36 is right for me at this time. I put the compact on a hilly ride and I did spin-out the 50-11 on the descent. I may use the compact again but only on much steeper climbs.

MajorMantra

I was just talking about the top speed thing. Some people seem to assume that having a compact means a lower top speed but they ignore the choice of cassette. You make it sound like I'm anti-standard. I prefer a standard double.

I made the comparison because a great many bikes (including those used by racers) come specced with a 53/12 max gear and for 99% of us it is sufficient. Obviously you can have any combination you want but I was drawing attention to the fact that very few people's top speeds will suffer because they chose a compact.

Kimmo

One thing that may not be all that obvious is that when you're running smaller rings, that makes the gaps between your gears bigger, since chain pitch is a constant.

In other words, if you were to use rings and cogs with twice as many teeth, there'd be room for gears halfway between; as the cogs and rings get smaller 1t becomes a bigger jump.

mmmdonuts

I would like to see all these "rec racers" who can push a 53/11 and say comparing a 50/11 to a 53/12 is not valid. Why isn't it valid? It shows that a compact crank can give high and low gears that few cyclists can exceed.

John_V 

Some very interesting and informative responses to the OP's question and, typical to the 41, it immediately went straight to differences in racing and then climbing. I hope the OP was not asking because they are trying to decide what to put on a road bike to use as a commuter, in which case most of these responses are somewhat meaningless.

As for me, I really don't know what the difference is as I have never had a standard double crank and came from a triple to a compact double. I did, however, noticed a big difference between the compact over the triple on the flats, which is all we have here. Too old to race and not much climbing in Florida for it to make a big difference to me but still an interesting read.

ShutUpLegs

I road a compact on my road bike for roughly two years. Something just always didn't feel right. This season I built a new bike and switched to standard and I will never look back. At first I was worried about climbing, but with the right cassette you can make gearing almost identical to a compact if you wanted. Using a standard has definitely made me more efficient in my pedaling and has helping my jumps for breakaways and sprints.

MajorMantra

This is the road forum, not the commuting forum. FFS.

Brian Ratliff

Yes, but you can also put on a 12-32 on the rear of a standard crank outfitted bike and get even lower gearing than you would with a compact and an 11-25. All you are saying is you can spread your gear range to get back to equivalent gearing. That that is an obvious point and you should just say that plainly. It does mean you are spreading your gear ratio, and increasing the gap between gear ratios. So, yes, you can spread the gear ratio, but it doesn't come without a cost.

For what it's worth, I have used a compact 50-36 for commuting simply for the fact that I am rarely pushing down hills, so don't need the tall gearing, and I can stay ing the 50 longer and don't need to futz with my front derailleur in the middle of traffic.

adriano 

a compact crankset is always better than a standard. put standard rings on it if you wish.

mmmdonuts

Yes and no. They are just gear ratios and you can configure both to have the same gears (ratios). In a nutshell, using common rear cogs you can get higher ratios with a standard crankset and lower ratios with a compact. I think we agree on this. My point is that the high and low limits (and where most of the nit-picking is) are beyond the reach or need of most riders.

badhat

i run a 52/36 compact with cassettes from 11/23 to 11/28 depending on the route/race

incredibly rare that i've missed that one extra tooth and often been glad i had the 36 vs a 39.

on top of which its a wider range than 52/39 with less redundancy.

DGlenday

Wut!

You'd compromise gearing for a few ounces?!?

Brian Ratliff

Does nobody making this observation live in an area with hills? If you are trying to push hard on even a modest downhill, you'll want that high gearing. My climbing cassette is actually an 11-28 (with a standard crankset) so I can get some low gears but can also push the pace going downhill with the 53/11. There have been several races and rides where I have spun out the 53/12. This doesn't mean I can push that gear on the flats for any significant distance.

shon73

Don't know if I have much to add to the discussion here, but I'll put in my 2 cents. If you regularly climb, you would probably prefer the compact. I originally wanted a compact, but ended up with a standard double. About a week later, I tried climb a fairly long, steep grade and wore myself out. I was really wishing for a compact/32 that day! But, now that I've been riding more, I really appreciate the gearing of the standard. I haven't gone back to that hill yet, though. That would be the real test! Personally, I really like my standard and don't know if I'd ever go to a compact - although I might consider one of the mid-compact options.

Shon

chadteck

Exactly.

The reason for comparing those two gear sets is that it doesn't make much sense to have a larger gear than what they offer.

A 53/12 at 110 RPM is 38.1 MPH and a 50/11 is 39.2 MPH. If you are moving at that speed or greater and you're descending, you're better off tucking. If you're moving at that speed and you're on a flat, you're sprinting and can likely kick up the RPM a bit if you need even more speed.

I own a standard myself, but I know some successful racers that use compact.

david58

Persactly - its one thing to talk cranksets in the flat country (FL, MS, KS, etc) or hilly country (much of elsewhere). Myself, though, I need the bottom side more than the top - my pucker string gets pretty taut on downhills where I spin out my 50/11.

I love my CX 46/36 for commuting - I have installed an 11-28 cassette, the result being I can big-ring most all of my commute (all of it in warmer weather when I am in better shape) and I still have good CX gearing. Rode the CX as my road bike all last year, and didn't need more than the 46 but a few times, and probably rode 75% or more of the time in the big ring.

Got my road bike in October, with 50/34 on the front. I have occasionally used 50/11 on a downhill, but the legs attached to my fat old butt can't push the big/small very far at all. I frequently (sadly) resort to the 34/28 on longer steep hills, but only notice a bit of relief compared to my 46/36 on the CX bike.

The compact works very well for me, but may or may not do so for the OP. As to standard, pre-history standards, etc, I remind myself of this sad fact - the hills I roll up with gearing, sometimes granny, I would have puttered up on my old JCPenny StingRay bike as a 10-year-old. I try to not remind myself of it very often.