note: updated below with informed opinions, as opposed to what i normally publish -sg!
note: updated again with even better material
this is an open thread to discuss the idea that there is some benefit to restricting the gears of junior cyclists. fixed gear cyclists, put a sock in it for now. this thread assumes we are talking about riders who choose multiple gears and some mechanism for selecting which gear to ride. Is there some benefit to restricting what gear the kids can ride?
info from usa cycling: link.
in canada, there is an evolving gear restriction. link. juniors under 13 have a maximum possible gear of 42 x 16, juniors under 15 have a maximum possible gear of 45 x 16, and juniors under 17 have a maximum possible gear of 52 x 16.
i am currently trolling for research but it's difficult to find directly applicable stuff. this article would appear to say that there is little difference. this article along with this article appear to show that arbitrarily modifying cadence (for instance by riding a fixed gearor using a gear restriction) may lead to suboptimal muscular contraction patterns. check this as well. demographically speaking, this is an interesting article, but i don't know if it provides useful proof for gear restrictions.
anyhow, plant your thoughs in the comments.
update (applied experience!): i solicited some feedback from pete lindeman who ran the junior program for ncvc for a few years before becoming their equivalent of maximum leader. as always, h is insightful and amusing. he has a lot of experience on all sides of this issue and i think his comments are well worth considering.
My experience with junior racers is on the very young end. I worked
with a bunch of 10-14 year olds for the most part, that was the age
of the kids in our program. Some had trouble turning a 39x21, so the
gear restrictions didn't matter too much anyway.
Most kids (well, any inexperienced cyclist, regardless of age) just
want to put it in the biggest gear and churn away, they think that
they will go fast. Of course when you are 11 or 12, going fast is the
key. That's what makes it fun.
Now of course at the younger end of the junior age group, most kids
aren't big enough to ride a bike with 700c wheels, let alone turn a
53x12. So we had a good-size fleet of 650c bikes. On those you don't
need as much modification to pass junior rollout in a race; I think a
53x13 passes when using 650 wheels.
I guess my big annoyance with the rule is that there isn't really any
sort of concrete reason for it. It isn't like a helmet where you can
say well obviously no riding without one. Gear restriction isn't a
safety issue, it isn't a competition issue, I'm not sure what it is.
It will ruin young knees to push a 53x11? What about older knees? Who
(besides Ramon) even uses the 11? Come on USA Cycling, give me a good
reason to repeat to kids and parents out there as to why their bikes
need to be set up differently. I hate having to mumble something
about knees, strength, etc. to a parent who has just spent $700 on a
bike and now has to spend another $45 on a new cassette and chainring.
I would offer the radical proposal that all cat 5 racers have the
gear restriction. I can't tell you how many adults I've seen come
into our sport who have terrible pedaling mechanics from pushing way
too big a gear. I was probably the same way when I started. I'd
definitely have benefitted from some kind of enforced spinning early
on. Gradually you learn to copy the guys with a real nice smooth
spin, but a lot of folks never latch onto that. Not sure if it's any
worse on the knees, but you don't get any faster without learning to
spin.
My hunch is that the gear restriction for juniors is an attempt to
get people used to spinning early on, to develop more polished riders
early on. But if you look at the member data, the vast majority of
new racers are not juniors. I think you'd get a bigger benefit from
enforcing the rule across the board at cat 5. I guess you couldn't
then have combined 4/5 fields but nobody wants that anyway.
Ok, on to the specific gripes about junior gear restrictions.
-- drivetrain equipment is not so easy to find. what you need for the
most part is a setup with a top gear of 52x14 or 45x12. Go into your
LBS and ask for a 14-25 cassette or a 45-tooth chainring. I'll bet
they don't have either. Why should they? We found one online retailer
that stocked the stuff, so each year our club orders a stockpile
which we then give away to kids who need the stuff.
-- the rollout procedure is an enormous waste of time on race day,
both for the racers and for the officials. In a typical juniors race
you have 20 kids aged 10 to 18 out there. It doesn't matter who has
what gear, the bigger, stronger kids will win. Period. So you're not
going to let a 12 year old kid out there because he has a 53x12
instead of a 52x14? That's nonsense. Well, we can just block the
gears. Have you seen the average parent set a derailleur limit screw?
No, you haven't. They don't know wtf you're talking about. Nor should
they. Poor dad, drove an hour to get to Tradezone, spent all this
money on a bike and uniforms for the kid, only to be told the bike
isn't quite right. Think he's going to come back?
-- The bike mfrs need to start selling racing bikes with gear setups
that meet rollout. Maybe there are local bike shops savvy enough to
swap out the necessary components before the kid takes the bike home,
but I sure haven't seen it around here. If cat 5s were restricted,
you better believe that every new Trek Madone out there would top out
at 52x14.
new update: i was sent some more correspondence on this topic. this is the most coherently argued perspective against this arbitrary rule that i have come across. i virtually never post anonymous material, but in this case, I will say only that this is from a parent of an active junior racer. this communique has everything. be sure to check out the last paragraph. the ending is brilliant. simply brilliant. enjoy...
This Juniors gear ruling is not founded on any empirical research that I can uncover. I've done a lot of research on the origins of the rule and it appears to come out of the UCI, based on nothing more than popular opinion. I believe USA Cycling has adopted the rule only to ensure that US Juniors and Espoirs remain compliant with and competitive in international competition. If that's the case, then why don't they so state. Is there a body of knowledge with the Espoirs National Team supporting the rule? Who knows? Other countries like Australia and Great Britain have even more restrictive Juniors gear rules that change with each racing age year from 12 to 23. Queries to clubs and organizations there have turned up a lot of support for the rule, but no rationale and no origin.
Our position of coordinating the 2008 US Air Force 60th anniversary bike race came out of my queries to USA Cycling as to the origins of the Juniors gear restriction rule. No one that I addressed at USA Cycling would discuss the rationale or origins of the rule. In fact, they wanted to get off the topic as quickly as possible.
As you know, 15 - 18 year old juniors must be Cat 3 rated or higher to qualify for National Championships. Here are some obvious facts that tend to question the merits of the new ruling that Juniors now must use restricted gearing in Seniors races as well:
1. The vast majority of Cat 5, 4, 3 races are flat-ground criteriums decided by a mass sprint in the final 500 meters or less. Loss of control from spinning out (150-200 RPM) in a 40 mph mass finishing sprint presents far more dangers to young riders than potential stress on joints and muscles from larger gears.
2. A large body of physiological research indicates that younger atheletes (under 23) are virtually incapable of self-induced stress injuries to muscles or joints, particularly in a sport like cycling, but are more highly susceptable to impact injuries, such as crashing, due to lack of skills and expereince (combine this with #3 above). In fact, adults over 23 are much more susceptible to repetitive stress injuries than juniors from lack of core strength, diminishing muscle mass (30+) and flexibility, and a more sedentary lifestyle.
3. USA Cycling cannot rule, measure nor enforce a rule on a minimum pedaling cadence, which is the stated rationale for the rule. Moreover, a bike race is not the place to teach or learn high-cadence pedaling technique. A fixie bike on a track is likely the best place to teach spinning. But in a race, instincts take over, and no amount of screaming from the sidelines will influence a kid trying to win a race, or just hang on to the pack and finish.
4. Pedaling stress on joints and muscles is relative to terrain, speed, wind, bike weight and measures, rider weight and measures, rider fitness, rider genetics, and rider pain tolerance, and NOT on the available gear selection. So, a 150lb. Juniors rider ascending a 20% grade at 17mph in a 52 X 17 gear is placing far greater stress on joints and muscles than a 120lb. Junior going 15mph in an illegal 53 X 12 gear on a flat course criterium. Moreover, every competitive Junior trains with one to two days of intervals to increase speed. There are tons of empirical data that support interval training as the only effective way to increase your speed. So when Juniors spin out doing intervals on flat terrain, they seek nice long really steep hills to get HRs into Zone 5 - rule and rationale defeated.
5. Neither NORBA nor USCF Cyclocross rules have Junior gear restrictions, despite encouraging far lower cadences and radical terrain changes with steeper climbing grades.
6. There is no empirical data that I can find showing 80 rpms as the universal optimum cadence for men, women and children, in any cycling venue, but its taught and published 10,000 times a year. Where did this optimum come from and when? What types of riding and bikes were around when someone suggested this cadence? What empirical data supports the suggestion?
Year after year, I've watched Morgan Gerlak go off the front early in a Junior's race, pedaling at a godawful slow cadence in his largest 52X14 gear, while his mother screamed red-faced at every lap for him to pick up his cadence. He never did. He usually won. He's never had a stress-induced injury from mashing a large gear at a low cadence. He goes right from road racing into cyclocross every year and does suffer injuries there from crashing. Sean Yates (Motorola) was known for his slow cadence, while Lance Armstrong debuted his newly reengineered 120 rpm TT cadence at TdF win #5 I believe. Within the most successful of the pro ranks, there's a huge variance in pedaling cadence, so I conclude that the Juniors gear restriction rule is based solely on popular opinion from some outdated and outmoded cycling official who thought it was a good idea at the time.
Popular opinion also taught us that the world is flat and the center of the universe; that spinach is full of iron and good if you're anemic; that bathing causes the black plague; that beer and wine are good for hydration on long, mountainous, hot stages of the TdF; and that the atmosphere is warming and the polar ice caps are melting. Well, sorry Popeye but spinach has no iron. The troposphere has only risen 1 degree Farenheit in the last 100+ years, while the stratosphere and the eastern Pacific ocean have experienced much more significant cooling in the last 20 years. The same supercomputers that are pumping out this doomsday crap about waterfront in DC by 2025 can't even predict the weather three days from now. There's been no significant change in the total ice mass of the poles for decades - it melts a little over here and grows a little over there. 2006 was the calmest hurricane season in decades with the least amount of property damage for a long, long t ime, but that fact isn't newsworthy because it doesn't support Juniors gear restrictions.
One thing USA Cycling will accomplish with the new rule is the enduring angst and mistrust of a generation of up and coming Juniors, likely for the rest of their cycling careers. <name withheld> already competes against juniors that are 10, 11 12 months older because he was born in December. What difference would it make to USA Cycling to have your racing age change on your birhtday, rather than the calendar year? That's how it works with drinking age and voting. Now they're going to force Juniors to compete in sprint finishes in Cat 1/2/3/4/5 Seniors races (<name withheld>'s goal is Cat 2 before season end) with a 20% gear-inch handicap (52x14 vs 53x12). That makes about as much sense as adding weight to a Junior's bike so he'll learn what it's like to race when he gets older and fatter.