Thanks Slogfester, it was really fascinating to know the approximately same route I rode : Lucerne-Interlaken.

Just to keep the info accurate: I stated the distances to err on the lower side (modesty ). Barring the Berne-Zurich section which I am sure is correct, the other sections could be as much as 20-25% higher than stated.

However my Lucerne-Interlaken section was not 96 kms as Slogfester rode because I avoided the bike route as far as possible. In fact, especially in this leg the bike paths seemed like a cruel joke: you find scary uphills on poor road, and after riding over them you are met with gravel on the downhill, so I had to get off and walk.

Probably Slogfester had reason to choose the off-road option and lug 30 kilos. For me, the lesson learnt the hard way is that the main roads offer 99.9% of the picturesqueness of the views with 50% of the torture of off-roads...during the return legs I followed this simple rule of staying on Blue Signage main roads, and it was much much easier.

One more tip for the Lucerne-Interlaken route:
Rahul also did this route with friends last season, following Slogfester's route which is National Bike Route 9. My tip (Chris has made this point earlier) is that you can ride on the North side of Briensee rather than the South side. This saves 5-10 kms, has sheer beauty and low traffic. It was a breeze to ride it and oh so lovely....

If you were referring to my yellow bike, yes, I did all this on the bike you see in the photo. As I said earlier, I did very little riding on gravel path...certainly not like what Slogfester did.
Anyway I must particularly thank Patrick and Rahul for some adjustments to the derailleurs and saddle the day before the ride, which had a dramatic effect, something which even my bike store had failed to solve earlier. I feel bike fitment is the most valuable investment than any physical component.

Standard Crankset: Yes, I could have done with more gears at the lower end. My smallest gear was fine for <5% climbs...beyond that I was forced to push at 45 rpm or less.

And here's a question that is puzzling me: I have 600 mm wheels instead of the more common 700 mm wheels. Does this mean I am relatively better off with standard cranskset than others, or vice versa?

IMHO, you should be aiming for 85-90 rpm.

It means you are relatively better off.
See you tomorrow Niranjan! Will be nice to hear about your trip.

Niranjan, here is my opinion ( that I'm sure will bring the flamethrowers on me )

I think the reason why you can't keep up with the group is simply that you haven't yet developed the strenght on your legs and the capacity on your heart/lungs for the level of the other riders on the pack.

But

You are a light man on a light bike. You on your bike are easily 35 Kg lighter than me and my bike.

I think you could progresively train and develop the strenght necessary to be swift on a standard.

... or probably not.

But this you wouldn't know until you try it.

You could take the shortcut of swaping your bike over to a compact or triple, investing on that change a significative amount of money in relation with the bike's cost. And then you'd be able to spin faster and maybe could keep up with the group

Or, you could train progresively, attempting gradually more challenging climbs and then at some point be able to do it on your current bike.

I think you can do it. I have seen you climbing, and the problem was not that you couldn't do it, you did. Simply you were slower than the pack.

In my opinion a triple could not solve the problem.

See, on a triple you have lower gears, but also you go slower than with a standard. or you have to spin it faster to be fast. at the end the triple could become a crutch and then you would mabye end not developing the strenght.

So. in conclusion, I am not telling you "do not get a compact or triple", I am telling you, fix yourself a goal and train progresively towards that goal.

If after you have tried you see that it is not possible for you to ride on a standard crankset then go and invest on probably on the swap or maybe even a new bike.

I put myself as example, keeping in mind that I am not an strong climber nor I pretend to become.

I made last weekend the climb from Küssnacht up to the hill. This same climb I made it last season when I was most fit.

Last year on a standard I could keep a climbing speed of ~ 20 Kmh.

Last sunday I made the same climb on the triple. now off-shape and overweight, I was on the small ring and my climbing speed was ~12 Kmh.

I am comparing me with myself.

So me, fit and after gradually training on the standard during a season could do it at 20Kmh, me un-fit and on the triple could do it only at 12 Kmh.

I am pretty sure that at the middle this season when I will be fit again I will do the same thing on the 39 teeth ring at 20Kmh or maybe more.

Sure maybe Eire and the other guys can do the same thing at 25Kmh or more since the begining of the season, but this is irrelevant for me.

I think riding on the group and seeing the other guys leaving you behind, is an excellent motivational thing, you know you have to train and improve to match them.

But I think also to want to match them from the begining, without proper training and "cheating" with a triple could be the wrong thing to do.

So... that's my view.... now flame on !

For your own sake Niranjan, please just ignore this kind of advice. SL means no harm, but he simply doesn't know what he's talking about (there is one piece of valuable information in his long post though: you climb faster when you are fit than when you are not). SL knows a lot about bikes and bike parts, but I have some doubts regarding his knowledge about sport, performance and training.
The debate compact/triple vs standard is absolutely not about how fast it enables you to go, but how fast it enables you to spin your legs. There is a huge difference between the two (at first sight at least).
I can go 20km/h on my small ring (I have a triple) without any problem (I can also do 12km/h on the middle ring, but my legs get tired more quickly). It is quite well known now that spinning your legs quite fast (say 80-90rpm) is the most efficient way to cycle (regardless of the gradient). Actually, with a bit of training, you can achieve the same velocity (with respect to the ground), with the same heart frequency, both at 90rpm and at 60rpm. High and low frequencies are therefore apparently "the same". However, the force you have to exert on the cranks at each stroke is much higher at lower cadences and that makes a big difference. It means the work is not done by the same muscle fibres and is not powered by the same energy sources (fat vs glycogen).
Last but not least, low cadences in hills is a good way to destroy your joints (but then you can use that money you saved on a compact/triple to go and visit the physio ).

Oops... I got carried away a little bit.... I didn't want to be that long...

Anyway, you can get yourself an unbiased opinion by looking at any decent training plan on the web (or simply look what kind of cadence the professional cyclists do).
See you later

Thanks for letting me know about this, Salsa. I'm now gonna switch my triple crankset for a standard double so that I'll go 50% faster. That is awesome! I'm going to be almost as fast as the pro's now. Maybe I'll get a contract and ride the Pro-Tour next year. This is invaluable advice, thanks again.

You still don't see the point I am trying to make,

Niranjan weights aroung 50Kgs. he could lift his weight much faster than any of us at 70-80Kgs.

He is new to the sport so he hasn't yet developed the muscles or skill to do so yet.

I think at that weight he could be able to use the standard. Or probaby not, and he needs a triple or an electric bike or a motorcycle.

The only point I am making is that to know that, he could have a gradual training and perhaps able to do so this season.

What I think is to go and push himself to go to 20% gradients like you like to do on that bike and when isn't able to do yet could have a negative impact on his motivation and on his knees.

It's as simple as this. If he was reduced to a cadence of 45rpm then he is using too much force to generate his power. This is not efficient for the muscles, leads to fatigue and in most cases actually a higher exertion rate too.

Without changing anything for him to increase his cadence from 45rpm to a more efficient 75-90rpm range he would need to increase his power output by 66-100%. This is just not going to happen. Thats like taking someone who has a power output of 200W at threshold, and increasing it to between 330W and 400W. Thats along the lines of taking a mere mortal like me and turning me into a pro, its not going to happen. Yes training improves power output and efficiency, but you have to be realistic about the gains you expect to make.

You should be using gearing that allows you to keep an efficient cadence throughout your ride. Lets face it, Pros use compacts from time to time too and they are pushing out stupid amounts of power.

Oh... and don't include me as someone who can sustain 25km/h up a climb. If its a proper climb I'm reduced to under 15km/h. If I can sustain 20km/h then it's not a gradient that I would consider a real climb.

I don't think anyone does!

"Cheating" with a triple or failing to complete climbs on a double? Mmmm, I think I know what I would choose. Sorry to be personal here, but please first complete a few climbs before handing out more advice on climbing. Niranjan is very much on the right path with his determination and efforts. If he is short of training or practice, I think he will have this sorted in the next month, if not weeks.

salsa a wide gearing only allows for more options, if one feels stronger, he could always push a bigger gear at a good enough cadence.

Something you need to understand is that power delivered is cadence*gear ratio, which means that a guy who is on his triple is riding in no way less effective than if he has the same speed on a double. Additionally, he might develop a better aerobic capacity in this manner and be way less fatigued on longer climbs.

Talking about how light riders should use a double, I also don't agree with that, as on hills it all boils down to power to weight ratio ( where a light guy might have correspondingly low power) and on flats he will have a hell of a time pushing the high gear on a decent cadence.

You're not wrong there !

No, not "us"...

That's a lot of rubbish... but I've now realised it's just a troll...
You almost had me going SL

You mean Salsa looks like this in in real life?

Yes, indeed,

I am the kind of troll who cares for his friends....


and not just leave to have my own pleasure knowing they are coming from 30km far away just to meet me.

Firstly, well done Niranjan on your tour.

I haven't done anything like that for some years now and your inspirational posts have made we want to put the racks back on my bike and go and explore Switzerland.

You make it sound as enjoyable, and simple as it needs to be.

There seem to be two sorts of sports enthusiasts on this forum.

Those, who just go out and do it.

And those who get hung up on believing that the more money they spend, and the tweaking they do , the better you will be and the most enjoyment they will have. They always blame their lack-lustre performance on their gear and never themselves. It's almost a drug -"if only I had one more shiny bit replacing this or that shiny bitthen I'm sure I would be better."

You seem to be in the first category - my advice is try and stay in it.

Dear friends,

Thanks for all those useful insights; I just hope other readers will be able to pick up the useful part and not get carried off by the banter.

Yes, perhaps the first thing I learnt from my internet research in Jan when I began biking with my toy bike was that the current wisdom is to spin, not push. 75-90 for people like us, while the pros can even spin upto 120 as in Salsa's Avatar picture . I can tell from personal experience that pushing larger gears may help me in short bursts, but strains my knees and lower back and wears me down rapidly...just as Sylvain and others have summarised.

My current bike is simply great; light and peppy, and proved to be rugged as well: I didn't have an iota of mechanical problems in the close to 500 km of riding. Whether to invest more money in buying a new gear set, or buying a new bike, was my dilemma, but that is a personal choice I have to make, and will do it sooner than later.

Salsa, I am sincerely very appreciative of your well-meaning suggestions; I hope the criticisms don't discourage you from posting more. After all, they do seem to attract a lot of attention and generate more debate/insights and in the end that is what matters.

My secondary objective of posting this thread was to highlight a nice route that is so close to Zurich and lots of people can try it without spending a bomb.

Organised bike tours along Bike Route 9, for a similar duration, would cost 1000 Fr for budget option (where you carry your luggage and stay in budget hotels), and 2500 for normal option. I stayed in Youth Hostels at all stopovers, ate well and rested well, and hardly spent 300-400 fr.

Route Zurich-Lucerne: Forgot to mention: for this, one need not worry about Bike Route 9 at all. Just follow the road toward Lucerne from Bahnhof Enge, and it takes you up the beautiful AlbisPass and then straight to Lucerne, bypassing Cham/Baar.

Route Berne-Zurich: This was one leg which was very easy to navigate, but proved to be very risky and I wouldn't attempt it again. Especially toward the end, the road becomes narrow, and trucks are a big hazard. They do drive carefully, but their dimensions leave very little space between the cycle and their trailers.

Route Lucerne-Interlaken-Chateau is called the Golden Pass route by train, and is supposed to be among the most beautiful sights outside the Swiss Alps. Die Post also runs tourist buses/hotels along this route. Cycling along this route leaves you with more beautiful sights than you can assimilate, and left me overwhelmed