Highest gears used by Pro's

tvaughn said:

I'm new to road riding and today got my Fuji Roubaix Pro to my fastest speed on a flat. I was in my biggest gear and was cruising at 34 mph, however I was spinning 120 rpms. I felt I could of used another gear or two if I needed to be sprinting or racing someone. My question is, how do Pro's get up to their top sprinting speeds? My Roubaix has a 39-53 in the front and 12-26 in the rear. I noticed the highest end bike Fuji makes also has 39-53 in the front and 12-23 in the rear. So how do the Pro's do it? To get up to 40 mph, I would have had to been spinning 150 rpms or higher.

For flat sprint stages I would have thought that they'd be using a 53x11 rather than 53x12.

sergen said:

For flat sprint stages I would have thought that they'd be using a 53x11 rather than 53x12.

Yep, they're also spinning pretty dang fast after launching off the leadout.

tvaughn said:

I'm new to road riding and today got my Fuji Roubaix Pro to my fastest speed on a flat. I was in my biggest gear and was cruising at 34 mph, however I was spinning 120 rpms. I felt I could of used another gear or two if I needed to be sprinting or racing someone. My question is, how do Pro's get up to their top sprinting speeds? My Roubaix has a 39-53 in the front and 12-26 in the rear. I noticed the highest end bike Fuji makes also has 39-53 in the front and 12-23 in the rear. So how do the Pro's do it? To get up to 40 mph, I would have had to been spinning 150 rpms or higher.

Not even close cowboy.
If you are spinning 120 rpms, if you have a 53 up front, 34 mph puts you in like the 15 tooth ring in the back. Do the math.

Lance wins time trials at 30-32 mph. Lance spins at 100 rpm and rarely on the flats would be in the 11 or twelve. Mostly between 13-15 teeth.

If you go to Sheldon Brown gear calculator, you will see.
If you spin 120 rpm, you can go 30 mph in the SMALL chain ring!

bobke,
Perhaps I didn't phrase my question perfectly. I was using all the gears available to me on my bike, spinning 120 like crazy and couldn't get my speed above 34 mph. There may be all kinds of factors that I didn't include: wind speed, gradient, quality of the bike, and quality of the rider. My question is what gear do highly accomplished riders use when, for example, they are sprinting on flat land with no wind? How high does their cadence get and what speed can accomplished sprinters reach (on the flats, with no wind)?

It's been a while since my physics degree, but I've ridden enough to know that if I'm in 53x13 and hammering away at 120 rpm, I'm going unbelievably fast.

I wouldn't worry about that gearing especially as a newbie.

Catabolic_Jones said:

It's been a while since my physics degree, but I've ridden enough to know that if I'm in 53x13 and hammering away at 120 rpm, I'm going unbelievably fast.

Yep, 40mph. analyticcycling.comGearSpeedCadence Page.htmlOpen ↗

frenchyge said:

Yep, 40mph. analyticcycling.comGearSpeedCadence Page.htmlOpen ↗

Hardly what I would call cruising.

Back to the question about highest gears, they sometimes use 56t chainrings on the TT bikes. But on regular road stages even the sprinters are pushing 53x11.

artmichalek said:

Hardly what I would call cruising.

Back to the question about highest gears, they sometimes use 56t chainrings on the TT bikes. But on regular road stages even the sprinters are pushing 53x11.

54, homes. The official Petacchi-edition DMT has "54x11" painted on the side, and Fast Freddy's recount of the last day he did anything noteworthy puts him using a 54 as well. Even the lead-out guys stock bigger big ring. McGee says here he "needed every tooth" to outfox the sprinters for a flat TdF stage win.

I can't say I've ever seen a 56t, though I'm sure it happened. It blew my mind to see Botero churning 55x11 to win the first long TT in the '02 Tour.

cosmo_the_third said:

54, homes. The official Petacchi-edition DMT has "54x11" painted on the side, and Fast Freddy's recount of the last day he did anything noteworthy puts him using a 54 as well. Even the lead-out guys stock bigger big ring. McGee says here he "needed every tooth" to outfox the sprinters for a flat TdF stage win.

I can't say I've ever seen a 56t, though I'm sure it happened. It blew my mind to see Botero churning 55x11 to win the first long TT in the '02 Tour.

Virtually no one except the world's best can push a 53X11 much less a 54X11 at the end of four to six hours racing for a sprint, but do it they can.

Mere mortals have trouble getting a 53X11 turning over for a real sprint at 12-130 rpm.

Doesnt matter what the wind is or other factors, if you are in a 53X12 and spinning 120 rpm you are flying.

The guys doing ITT prefer the 54 and 55 up front because they dont want to spin out going down 5-6% gradients which they would with a 53X11. They want to maximize everything. They really dont use the 55X11 very much otherwise, but in a hilly TT having enough gear is crucial (or if there are sections with big tailwinds)

In "Richard's Bicycle Book" (1st edition) he reckoned he had a 60 tooth ring at the front end, and used it. He also claimed to be able to spin at 200 revs. Now this goes back a few years, when sprockets had only five rings, but he must have been shifting some.

BTW he never actually won a race, as far as I am aware.