You definitely can make your highest gear higher by using bigger tires, BUT the differences are small. Let's look at the numbers objectively:
Running a 32x11 as your highest gear on a bike with 700x44 wheels, you are talking about a top gear that is roughly 81 gear inches. Pedaling at 60RPM you'll be going 14.5MPH. Pedaling at 110RPM, you'll be going 26.6MPH. 81 gear inches is not that high a top gear. Many cyclists complain that they spin out at 81 gear inches, and those people self identify as mashers. They like to push hard at low RPM. They don't want to pedal at 110RPM, but they want to go faster at lower cadence. That's cool. Get higher gears to do it. Going from a 32 to a 34 increases that top gear by about 6% to about 86.5 gear inches. Pedaling slowly at 60RPM, you'll be going about 1 mile per hour faster, 15.5MPH. That's a small improvement Going from 44mm tires to 55mm tires increases the wheel diameter by 20mm. That's about a 3% increase in diameter, so it increases the gear inches by about 3% to about 89 gear inches. It's about HALF the benefit you got from switching the chainring. Now mashing at 60RPM will make you go another half a mile per hour faster, to something like 16MPH. Hypothetically if you could switch to a SRAM Eagle cassette which is 10-52, then your top gear would jump up by ~10%. In other words, switching from an 11T to a 10T cog would make more of a difference than changing both the chain ring and the tires. That's simple, but it's expensive. If you made all of the above changes, we're talking about an 18% increase. Hypothetically if you could train yourself to pedal 20% faster, then you'd make more of an impact and do it for free. Pedaling faster is free if you are able to do it. Many claim that spinning is more efficient also. Many claim that they are far more able to spin when running shorter cranks. If you are already a spinner and already maxing out at 26MPH or faster and need to go still faster, then higher gearing is the way to go. Best of luck on all of it. Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA On Tuesday, November 12, 2024 at 12:41:26 PM UTC-8 robtw...@gmail.com wrote: > Thanks. Oh, the bigger chainring up front is definitely happening. > > I'm running 44s and can go a bit wider, but I guess I was asking > specifically for tires that people know are "taller" as well, that is that > increase the overall diameter of the wheel. I appreciate the skepticism > regarding the suggestion, but this is a VERY well known and trusted LBS, > with excellent staff, who think about these things a lot in a variety of > setups (not just Rivendell, Waterford, etc., though they do that too). > > On Thu, Nov 7, 2024 at 6:30 PM Drew Saunders <drew.s...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> You can use this handy tool to test. Here, I’m assuming a 11-36 cassette, >> and comparing a 32 vs 34 with 42-622 tires. Oddly, there’s no option for >> 44-622, but RH tires run a bit smaller than labeled. >> http://www.gear-calculator.com/?GR=DERS&KB=34&RZ=11,13,15,17,19,21,24,28,32,36&UF=2230&TF=90&SL=2.6&UN=MPH&DV=gearInches&GR2=DERS&KB2=32&RZ2=11,13,15,17,19,21,24,28,32,36&UF2=2230 >> >> Here, I keep the 32, but change to a 54-622 tire: >> >> http://www.gear-calculator.com/?GR=DERS&KB=32&RZ=11,13,15,17,19,21,24,28,32,36&UF=2295&TF=90&SL=2.6&UN=MPH&DV=gearInches&GR2=DERS&KB2=32&RZ2=11,13,15,17,19,21,24,28,32,36&UF2=2230 >> >> Get the bigger chainring! >> >> On Thursday, November 7, 2024 at 8:29:50 AM UTC-8 wboe...@gmail.com >> wrote: >> >>> It's hard for me to imagine that increasing your tire size is going to >>> have much (any?) actual effect on speed. Which I assume is what we're >>> targeting here? In my stable, once I get beyond 38mm, I take for granted >>> that those bikes will be slower. I'm not sure I can gauge how much slower >>> 29x2.2 is than, say 650x48. >>> >>> I'd stick with swapping out the chainring and see if that makes the >>> difference you're looking for. You could also shrink your cassette some to >>> get smaller jumps between gears. >>> >>> Will >>> >>> On Thursday, November 7, 2024 at 9:49:42 AM UTC-5 DavidP wrote: >>> >>>> Generally the way to increase tire diameter for a given wheel size is >>>> to increase the tire width. Do you have room for wider tires? >>>> >>>> It strikes me that using tire diameter to compensate for drivetrain >>>> gearing seems a bit like the tail wagging the dog. What kind of crank and >>>> bottom bracket setup does this bike have? >>>> >>>> -Dave >>>> >>>> On Tuesday, November 5, 2024 at 11:18:29 AM UTC-5 robtw...@gmail.com >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On one of my bikes I have 1x set-up. It's currently a 32T up front and >>>>> the largest I can go is 34T. I think I want to do that as I want to be >>>>> able >>>>> to push a little harder. >>>>> >>>>> In conversations with my LBS they pointed out I could also go as large >>>>> as possible with my tires to increase the length of each revolution. >>>>> >>>>> I'm currently running 700x44 Snowqualmies (RH). I definitely have >>>>> clearance for "taller" tires, but I'm at a loss for even starting a >>>>> search >>>>> like this. >>>>> >>>>> Anyone have recs? >>>>> >>>>> TIA >>>>> Bob >>>>> >>>> -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "RBW Owners Bunch" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com. >> > To view this discussion visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/f076aa0d-bba4-4c65-a059-e9638e5e13a8n%40googlegroups.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/f076aa0d-bba4-4c65-a059-e9638e5e13a8n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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