Gear-Shame Me Once, Shame On You… – Bike Snob NYC

If you’re not from New York you may wonder how people manage to ride here, but once you get out of town the riding’s not bad:

Not bad at all:

In this particular case I took paved roads and trails pretty much all the way up, and then unpaved trails pretty much all the way back down:

Once again I also used the new cyclist and pedestrian bridge, which I’m now starting to realize is almost comically short:

It’s so short that, if you were on a Rivendell, by the time your rear wheel made it onto the bridge your front wheel would already be on the other side.

You know, because of the long wheelbase:

That’s called “Rivendell humor,” and it’s a niche within a niche within a niche.

And if you like Rivendell jokes, it’s a good thing I wasn’t riding the Platypus this time, because it probably exceeded the bridge’s weight limit:

Anyway, it was a highly enjoyable ride, and nary another road user managed to molest me or cause me any form of undue consternation, though as usual I did have to watch out for the deer:

Meanwhile, when was anybody going to tell me about the new gear ratio thing?

Apparently I’m the last one to find out that the UCI will soon experiment with a maximum gear ratio in an effort to slow riders down:

Review of maximum gear ratio

A test to limit the maximum gear ratio – approved by all families – will be carried out during a stage race in the second half of the 2025 season. The maximum gear ratio allowed in this context will be 54 x 11, i.e. 10.46 metres per crank revolution. The maximum gear ratio limitation aims to limit the speed reached in competition. It has been proven that the very high speeds reached by riders today are a risk factor for their safety.

The events during which the tests will be carried out will be announced at a later date.

For a sport looking to shake the whole “omerta” thing, saying something has been “approved by all families” seems like a strange way to go about it:

As for the maximum gear ratio, I have never ridden a bike equipped with a 54×11. I have ridden one with a a 53×11, since when I raced that’s what you were supposed to use, but I can assure you it was entirely for show. Still, it does seem to me that a professional cyclist descending a mountain pass can still get up to terminal velocity rather easily on a 54×11, so I’m not sure what difference this is going to make, but whatever. I do know that all the new freehub body standards now accept 10-tooth cogs, and it would make me extremely happy if all these new wheels and drivetrains were to suddenly become illegal, but sadly I understand it’s the overall size of the gear that matters, not the number of teeth on the smallest cog, and that as much as I’d like to see pretty much every new piece of high-end cycling equipment banned overnight I realize that’s not what’s going to happen.

I bet Path Less Pedaled is also pretty happy about it:

Though I maintain “gear shaming” is not a thing–at least not shaming people for using small gears. If anything, in the age of gravel, the only gear-shaming is criticizing people because their gearing is too big. In fact, as far as I can tell, “Alt cycling” seems to be mostly about people buying high-end boutique equipment from companies like Chris King and White Industries, bragging about how they never exert themselves, and shaming people on inexpensive road bikes for riding too hard.

As far as I’m concerned, in the age of the $600 wide-range cassette, high gears are the new low gears. Also, let’s not forget I rode all of Switzerland with a low gear of 42×21, and anyone who doesn’t do the same is a “woosie:”

That’s not gear-shaming, that’s just the truth.

And yes, of course I believe easy access to low gearing is a very good thing, but I do think it’s all gone a little crazy, which is why you need a singlespeed for the occasional reality check:

Except having a singlespeed really doesn’t count if you have a bunch of other bikes that aren’t singlespeeds–and I say this as someone who has a singlespeed in addition to a bunch of other bikes that aren’t singlespeeds. It’s easy to ride around saying “One gear really is all you need!” when I’ve got another bike almost exactly like it with all the gears in the world waiting for me at home:

It’s like calling yourself car-free because the car is in your spouse’s name. Of course, like putting the car in your spouse’s name, having both geared bikes and singlespeeds is also smart. But it doesn’t mean you get to go around congratulating yourself.

And finally, while the UCI may be trying to limit the speed of human-powered bicycles, you’re free and clear to go as fast as you want in New York City, just as long as you aren’t riding an e-bike:

See?

Of course, this omits both the fact that New York City has in fact ticketed regular cyclists for speeding over the years, and that there exists such a thing as “Fred ‘Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo’ Speed:”

The venerable Wall Street Journal then goes on to illustrate the sheer speed of which competitive cyclists are capable by citing the most unlikely example possible. Sure, thousands upon thousands of people on S-Works (S-Workses?) and Pinarellos may stream over the George Washington Bridge on any given weekend, and there are regular road races in the parks, but somehow they managed to find a triathlete who rides a Bridgestone:

I guess he never heard of “party pace.”