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
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