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Switching from SS racing to geared racing....ouch

7K views 81 replies 31 participants last post by  Mantawa 
#1 ·
Long time SS racer here. About 3 years, where I raced nothing but a SS. Short track, regular XC, 100 mile races, 8 hour solos, 24 hour SS teams, SS CX...everything. Became proficient enough to win a few USAC Cat 1 SS races, dominate my local Expert SS XC series, and win my local SS CX overall season title as well. This late winter, I entered a few early season races on my SS but in the geared classes, and found that I could easily keep up with, and often beat, the Expert geared riders on my SS.

So I was happy...but needed a new challenge. So I decided to switch to gears (wow, BAD pun), and get a 1x10 setup.

Had my first geared XC race this past Sunday. Entered Pro/Expert class (an open class that is a mix of bonafide license holding Pro's and our local area fastest Experts), and I swear to god that it hurt in a way that I have never hurt in a SS race.

I did fine...got a 3rd place, finishing close behind two fast buddies and we essentially raced tire-to-tire for the entire race. But one thing I'm noticing is that I cannot recover when racing gears. On my single speed, I was able to crush hills (especially short punchy ones) which would get my HR up and ownerize my legs, but then I could quickly recover on the downhills and flats when I'd spin out. I became quite proficient at linking these hard effort burts and quick recoveries.....but now with gears, I find that instead of recovering on the flats, it's more like "click, click, click" find some more gear and keep the power down. Ughh...It's gonna be a bit of an adjustment. But that's exactly what I was looking for so that's good.

Anyway, to all those guys in races that looked over at my SS and said something to the effect of "yeah! single speeder!! bad ass! good job man!"....I say, 'bad' ass' back to you, because IMO racing gears is harder. (or I guess I just have to adapt to it...hopefully I can).

any other SS'ers find out the same thing? How did you adapt? I kind of want my SS back :D
 
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#2 ·
So are you saying this was your first race of the season? If so, my guess is you just aren't as in good shape as you've been in the past, or maybe just an off day. We all have those days when perceived exertion is way up for some reason. If you were fast on SS, there is no reason you wouldn't be as fast on gears. If the gears really were slowing you down somehow, then easy fix, just don't shift!
 
#3 ·
climr said:
So are you saying this was your first race of the season? If so, my guess is you just aren't as in good shape as you've been in the past, or maybe just an off day. We all have those days when perceived exertion is way up for some reason. If you were fast on SS, there is no reason you wouldn't be as fast on gears. If the gears really were slowing you down somehow, then easy fix, just don't shift!
It was actually about my 4th race of the season.....but the first with gears; whereas the others were on SS.

I don't think the gears are slowing me down...they're definitely faster. But they HURT more. It's a different kind of effort I guess. i.e. a more consistent power output with gears vs. gas on/gas off with SS (hard to explain).
 
#5 ·
You probably already know this, but SS demands more out of saddle pedaling and working different muscles than in saddle pedaling. (climbs)

Could that be it?? Perhaps you were grinding away seated and your muscles aren't used to that stress anymore.

I noticed exactly what you are saying every time I switch either from geared to ss or ss back to geared after long periods of riding only one style..

Muscles need time to adapt.

My guess is that you will be a tiny bit faster geared once your legs get used to running gears again.

I am racing this entire season on 1X9 just to see how I do.
 
#7 ·
I have thought this might be a factor (automatic conservation on the flats and downhills). I usually ride for fun & train on a SS, but race geared. Being able to reach for harder gears on anything but the uphills does seem to demand a more consistent amount of output.

I don't know how much more efficient a SS speed bike is - but mine certainly feels like it's putting down the power more effectively.
 
#10 ·
After racing the past 4 season on the SS in both the Cat1 SS open, and my age group I was going to try and race with a derailleur this year.
I liked it in the snow but I found I wasn't keeping my momentum and would be bogging down searching for a gear. Once the snow melted (yay!) that clacking got annoying and I decided to just go back to what I know best.
I have found that I like racing my age group more than the SS class; those geezers are fast!
 
#13 ·
fixie training?

I know exactly what you are talking about; I never blow up when riding/racing my SS, hit it hard, hit it again, and again. Its like there is some limiter that keeps you from overdoing it, not sure if it involves low cadence at all, or if its only because your legs get an occasional rest.
But I dont think its anything to do with using different leg muscles, I think its your HR maxing out and not getting the break that its used to, which would also involve lactate clearance (or lack of). The SS is sort of like doing intervals, while the geared bike is more steady-state cardio.

I have a few roadie friends that claim riding flat roads will tire you out more than riding big hills, because you never stop pedaling more than a few seconds on the flats. They also claim it improves endurance and overall fitness.

So I'd suggest incorporating some nonstop-pedaling into your training, both endurance and tempo.

And of course part of the Friel program is to progressively increase the length of your intervals while decreasing the recovery, until you are just hammering away nonstop into the peak/race phase.
 
#16 ·
TJRosson said:
when i go back to riding a geared bike, my problem is learning (or rather remembering) to shift gears.
I really believe it's two different riding styles. I train 90% on ss and raced ss for the last 2 years but when I ride my geared bike, I push too much and am reluctant to downshift. I find I have to monitor my avg mph a lot more when riding gears. I think if I wanted to condition myself to race on gears, it would take several months of re-training my fitness and riding style before I would see the advantages to going back to gears.

I would say I am faster on my geared but I can maintain higher avg mph with lower avg hr on my ss on typical courses in the southeast that don't demand insane climbs so go figure.
 
#17 ·
I still can't wrap my head around this. I can understand how if you train on a SS then you will adapt to that riding style and be faster/more efficient. But why not just ride that way on a geared bike, and only use the gears in extreme circumstances (long steep hill, or long steep downhill) where a SS would spin out or cause you to dismount?
 
#19 ·
climr said:
I still can't wrap my head around this. I can understand how if you train on a SS then you will adapt to that riding style and be faster/more efficient. But why not just ride that way on a geared bike, and only use the gears in extreme circumstances (long steep hill, or long steep downhill) where a SS would spin out or cause you to dismount?
The problem for me is this (hopefully I can summarize it better):

I can indeed ride my geared bike as much as possible like my SS, that is, attacking the climbs a bit harder, not downshifting into an easier gear, standing, etc. That is not a problem at all.

The issue (for me) is more on the flats...on the geared bike, I'm downshifting into harder gears to stay on the wheels of everyone else. Whereas, if I were on my SS, I would spin out more and have more of an opportunity to recover.

Racing at semi-pro level on my geared bike is requiring a more overall consistent power output than what I am used to on my SS bike. Whereas my SS is more of a "bursty" type of riding style.

I'm probably still not doing a good of explaining it! (sorry).
 
#21 ·
No, that's a great explanation. So it sounds like gears have revealed a training weakness. I've spent some time on a SS and though that revealed a bunch of weaknesses in my riding style (mostly not maintaining momentum).. and also that my knees would turn to dust if I did that all the time. Cool how it works both ways.
 
#22 ·
Tyrone Shoelaces said:
The problem for me is this (hopefully I can summarize it better):

I can indeed ride my geared bike as much as possible like my SS, that is, attacking the climbs a bit harder, not downshifting into an easier gear, standing, etc. That is not a problem at all.

The issue (for me) is more on the flats...on the geared bike, I'm downshifting into harder gears to stay on the wheels of everyone else. Whereas, if I were on my SS, I would spin out more and have more of an opportunity to recover.

Racing at semi-pro level on my geared bike is requiring a more overall consistent power output than what I am used to on my SS bike. Whereas my SS is more of a "bursty" type of riding style.

I'm probably still not doing a good of explaining it! (sorry).
1+ I completely understand what you are talking about. When you are on a geared bike you are constantly outputting more power on the flats. Not to mention the additional overall weight you have to carry for the entire race.
 
#24 ·
Tyrone Shoelaces said:
The issue (for me) is more on the flats...on the geared bike, I'm downshifting into harder gears to stay on the wheels of everyone else. Whereas, if I were on my SS, I would spin out more and have more of an opportunity to recover.
Do you do any road riding with groups? If so are you able to keep up with the breakaway groups and faster riders?
 
#25 ·
dontheclysdale said:
Do you do any road riding with groups? If so are you able to keep up with the breakaway groups and faster riders?
Just started joining my local road training rides....and yep, these rides have highlighted my weakness as well...the flats.

For all the past few years that I've been racing SS, I mainly climbed hills (and did alot of anaerobic threshold type intervals) to become faster and be competitive there..and it worked. But I definitely realize that I need to change up my game just a bit to make the move to geared racing.
 
#26 ·
Fakie1999 said:
Wouldnt a higher avg speed mean your faster on the SS?
No, read the entire post. I am more efficient on my ss is what I am saying. I can maintain a 11 to 11.5 avg mph on my ss in zone 3-4 no problem. If I go into zone 5 I'm still maybe avg 11.8 mph so there is really no gain in efficiency. On my geared, zone 3-4 is usually in the 10- 10.5 avg mph but when I hammer it in zone 5, I can avg closer to 14-15 avg mph.

The reason I am more efficient is because I train/ ride ss 10-12 hrs/ week and ride my gears maybe 2-3 hours a month. I can go faster on my geared due to the extra gears but I ride harder to maintain the same speed I would ride on my ss. Say an avg mph of 11 @ avg hr of 175 on geared compared to avg mph @ 11 on my ss at 165 over say 10 miles. Most of you probably think "if you stayed in the same gear on the geared over that distance it would be the same" but you don't ride a ss the same way as a geared. With gears I might climb x hill at 6 mph @ 100 cadence, with ss I would climb same hill @ 8 mph with 30 cadence. On flats I will run big gear on geared bike and avg 14 mph with cadence of 70 and lower hr compared to max of 12 on ss with a cadence of 100 and high hr.

Hence I am faster on my geared but more efficient on my ss. The trade off is the the cost of going faster on my geared bike results in less efficiency in my conditioning and therefore I cannot maintain that speed as long. So to clarify my prior statement, I am faster on a geared bike relative to my conditioning, ie right now I could ride probably around 2.5hrs competitively on my geared, after that, the avg speeds would diminish.

Like I said in my prior post, they are two different riding styles and require different training and conditioning to be competitive at either.
 
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