Horses for courses, as always.
Dougcan seems to spin on the uphills and doesn't pedal on the downhills, or that's what I can gather from the screenshots. If you live in areas with less dramatic height differences, but end your rides with a similar accumulated positive height, that means your trails meander up and down the hills, and in those cases a consistent cadence rewards you with better oxygen management and less fatigue. Finding the right cassette cog to match your mood/fitness is king in those situations.
As pointed below, the wide rage cassette makes sense from the OEM standpoint for this simple point: Buy once, feature it on every kind of bicycle you have down your range. Not to mention the SKU nightmare it'd be to stock individual cogs to allow each consumer to put together their preferred N speed combo. I know a lot of the most experienced (and wealthy) riders out there tend to swap parts as soon as they get their new bike, but imagine being left without a couple weeks of riding time because you are waiting for that 29t cassette cog. I mean, yoo could still ride your bike, but with less steps in between you could end up way off your natural cadence or your strongest pedaling bracket...
If I might offer an alternative, I'd like to see someone put a CVT hub (a la NuVinci) as a gearbox in a bike. If the weight and durability issues could be overcome, I think it would make a great alternative to a regular transmission. One could enjoy the whole range of "gearing" without any discrete increments, and nobody would be bitching about a missing shifting step between other two.
Jan. 23, 2020, 11:15 a.m. - Luix
Horses for courses, as always. Dougcan seems to spin on the uphills and doesn't pedal on the downhills, or that's what I can gather from the screenshots. If you live in areas with less dramatic height differences, but end your rides with a similar accumulated positive height, that means your trails meander up and down the hills, and in those cases a consistent cadence rewards you with better oxygen management and less fatigue. Finding the right cassette cog to match your mood/fitness is king in those situations. As pointed below, the wide rage cassette makes sense from the OEM standpoint for this simple point: Buy once, feature it on every kind of bicycle you have down your range. Not to mention the SKU nightmare it'd be to stock individual cogs to allow each consumer to put together their preferred N speed combo. I know a lot of the most experienced (and wealthy) riders out there tend to swap parts as soon as they get their new bike, but imagine being left without a couple weeks of riding time because you are waiting for that 29t cassette cog. I mean, yoo could still ride your bike, but with less steps in between you could end up way off your natural cadence or your strongest pedaling bracket... If I might offer an alternative, I'd like to see someone put a CVT hub (a la NuVinci) as a gearbox in a bike. If the weight and durability issues could be overcome, I think it would make a great alternative to a regular transmission. One could enjoy the whole range of "gearing" without any discrete increments, and nobody would be bitching about a missing shifting step between other two.