Coker vs GUNI performance on RTL?

[GizmoDuck]

Originally Posted by StephenH

"Next time I think there should be different categories for the unis, or something like that to make it fair - seeing as the course is good for Gunis there's no use people on other unis trying to compete."

There's no end to that line of reasoning. They need a category for overweight older newbies on 20" so I can compete.

It would have to depend on the size of the respective fields. I think it would have been nice to have male and female categories if the field got large enough. When was the last time you saw a woman compete in the mens Tour de France?

[mscalisi]

I say boo to long cranks.

I'm not really qualified to say that it's possible to go as fast or faster with 127mm cranks vs. 152mm cranks on a Schlumpf 36er since I wasn't one of the fastest riders, but that's what I run. I don't think I'm going to switch back.

That being said, I performed pretty well with my setup. I managed 16th out of 105 on the time trial which I'm happy with in terms of my athleticism. I was also able to power up hills in high-gear much better than I expected.

152mm cranks suck in 1:1 mode except for super-steep climbing or MUni. 127mm cranks are MUCH more useable and I don't think they've limited the terrain I ride in high gear in any significant way. Shifting is also dramatically easier, and these two things combined significantly improve the functionality of my 36er Schlumpf.

I predict that more people will move to shorter cranks on their GUnis.

Does anyone know what the Germans were running for crank length?

Originally Posted by tholub

In general, people on the GUnis are running longer canks, so they can't spin as fast; Chuck, who was clearly the fastest guy in the race, was on a geared 36 with 150s.

The holy grail of geared unis might be a three speed, 1:1, 1:1.3, 1:1.7 hub with 170mm cranks.

[siafirede]

Originally Posted by mscalisi

I predict that more people will move to shorter cranks on their GUnis.

Does anyone know what the Germans were running for crank length?

Yeah,

I talked to them a while, they are all great guys and were more than willing to explain their set ups.

2 of the riders (Arne and Jan) were running 36" schlumpfs with 125mm cranks, and Johannes was riding 140s (since he is quite tall).

I believe that Arne did not use a brake on his geared 36er with 125s, which sounds crazy since some of those downhills went on forever! I wasn't using a brake on my geared 29 with 125s, but a geared 36 with 125s is another story.

I tried out Chuck's 36er in the 125mm slot and the 150mm slot. The 150mm slot felt so much nicer to me than the 125s, but I may just need practice with the 125s to fully benefit from them. Shifting was indeed quite easy still with the 150mm cranks, and I don't think that shifting often would be a problem. The 125s would give you two fast usuable gears, but you would be shifting more often than the 150s where you would try to keep it in high gear more often.

Dan Hansen, Beau (on the last day), and Corbin were using geared 36ers with 150mm cranks, and they were all quite fast on their machines.

The 150s on Chucks uni did seem too long on the flats and downhills, so I would be curious to see how 140s would feel on it.