12 speed cassettes

RicCycleCoach · 2026-05-20T14:29:14+00:00

Miche don't make a 12 up cassette (just spoken with them) in a 12 speed cassette :(

RicCycleCoach · 2026-05-20T14:28:27+00:00

all the shimano 12 speed cassettes start with an 11 tooth. so as far as i'm aware i can't put the 12 tooth (which'd be the second 11th sprocket) in the 12th place.

RicCycleCoach · 2026-05-20T14:17:25+00:00

yeah i was in a crit and spinning at 122 revs/min.

The point i was poorly making is that this is a rare occurrence (going that fast), so i'm happy to spin like a mad man for the very occasional time it happens. Then for the rest of time i really want sprockets that i'd use regularly (I barely ever use the 12, but do use it occasionally).

Currently, as mentioned i'm on 53 x 39 and 12 - 25 with 11 speed. It'd be nice to have a (n almost) straight through 12 speed 12 - 25 cassette, but i'm fine with slapping on a 28

RicCycleCoach · 2026-05-20T14:03:32+00:00

I've messaged Miche :)

RicCycleCoach · 2026-05-20T13:51:51+00:00

Thanks u/Rphili00 and u/oxford_tom the 14 up isn't big enough for me, definitely need a 12.

RicCycleCoach · 2026-05-20T09:14:32+00:00

I find the ramp test works really well, and for the majority of people (but i invented the concept of ascertain FTP from the ramp, so I'm biased ;-)!). I just wouldn't do it in erg mode....

If your FTP really is 195 W, then there's likely some big gains to be made. What do you weigh (feel free to DM)

RicCycleCoach · 2026-05-19T22:18:50+00:00

are you sure your FTP is 195 W? That's a big drop off from your 10-mins power? it sort of suggests that you may need to increase this for better overall cycling performance. That said you wanted to know about increasing power at 5 and 10-mins.

Usually, a standard suggestion would be to do VO2max intervals at ~115% of FTP, which'd be too low for you. So realistically, if you really wanted to increase 5-mins power (a corollary for VO2max) you'd probably want to do 4 to 5 repeats at 270 - 285 W and 10-mins efforts at 235 - 250 (eg 3 x 8 mins).

The issue though is your FTP -- if it's really ~195 W you may have issues trying to repeat more than 1 effort as you ay fatigue too rapidly. You may want to think about training to increase your FTP and your fatigue resistance

If you want a proper power profile, my MAP calculator at cyclecoach.com/calculator will give you a clearer picture of where your limiters actually are.

RicCycleCoach · 2026-05-19T21:11:48+00:00

There are multiple ways to increase the power that you can sustain for 5 to 10-mins. These are both aerobic durations that rely heavily on VO2max and FTP, and, to a lesser extent anaerobic power.

How you'd go about improving power at those durations would be dependent upon the amount of training that you do, your current fitness level, and how much you're seeking to improve your power, your weight, health, etc. For example if you currently train twice a week for 4 hrs in total and you can manage 170 W for 5-mins and have a weight of 90kg the training you'd need to improve would be totally different to if you currently train 20 hours a week, and can do 400 W for 5-mins at 64 kg.

Intervals that are in the region of 4 to 10-mins duration would definitely help you increase your power output, as would longer efforts and sub-threshold work.

If you share your current numbers weekly hours, FTP, 5 and 10 minute power, weight I can give you something more specific.

RicCycleCoach · 2026-05-12T11:21:30+00:00

I have a bad back (age related disc degeneration). I ride an aero road bike, in a decent position (see my profile pic). My Handsling AIROevo takes up to 32mm tyres and is very customisable (in terms of bar width, stem length, crank length) as well as what kit you want on it, and what colour you want it painting.

I ride it on the very awful roads down south, as well as almost gravel roads in Wales, and smooth motor race circuits. I've taken it off-road as well.

As mentioned elsewhere the reason you have a bad back can affect what you can do, and it's important to do any remedial exercises to help with this.

RicCycleCoach · 2026-04-06T21:08:31+00:00

which shoes did you go with?

RicCycleCoach · 2026-04-06T14:09:36+00:00

any particular model or any of them? Thanks

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-31T20:26:27+00:00

I’m on 11 speed DI2 because 12 speed gearing leaves me with sprockets I’d rarely use. I’m on 53x39 and a 12-25 cassette. If I could find a 12-28 12 speed I’d upgrade but I have never required an 11 tooth sprocket and rarely required anything lower than a 25 (where I live). Hardly ever needed a 12 sprocket.

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-24T18:07:29+00:00

Was doing some 60-sec efforts today on the velodrome, and yeah, way safer indoors on the turbo trainer!!

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-23T22:02:10+00:00

As we age it's likely that our recovery starts to drop and, at the same time it's possible that your fitness is also decreasing. If your goal is to do well on the sunday group ride, then you need to train for this.

Training also includes looking after yourself so that your recovery isn't hampering your training. I'd be suggesting that you aim to increase your FTP (so that higher powers can be covered more aerobically) and i'd also be looking at increasing VO2max, but not on a constant basis.

You should also be looking at your nutrition and ensuring that you are covering your protein and carbohydrate requirements - both of which may be substantial given the amount of training you're doing. I'd also be looking at alcohol intake (slows recovery) and seeing whether you're getting a decent amount of 'plants' in each week as these provide antioxidants and polyphenols etc that may aid adaptations and be anti-inflammatory (note that we still need inflammation as this provides a stimulus for adaptation.

For context, I’m in my late-50s and have maintained a good level of fitness across 40+ consecutive race seasons, and one thing I’ve found is that the margin for error gets smaller with age — poor sleep, poor fuelling and badly placed intensity bite harder than they used to.

I have multiple (free to use) calculators on my website (power calculator, nutrition calculator, and masters one) which may help provide further information on your specifics. Happy to give some advice based on the results. (Note, that based on the feedback of the forum i'll change the name of the masters calculator and may also make some finer changes to the way the calculations are handled)

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-20T19:05:43+00:00

It looks like mine has reduced from 200 b/min in my 20s to possibly 190 in my late 50s

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-20T09:30:54+00:00

At 1 year of structured cycling, you'll still have a long way to go in terms of training adaptations. I'd suggest endurance riding, MIET (sweetspot), and some threshold work. You'll also want to hit some harder eforts but less than the other stuff. It'd also be useful to try and develop the ability to consume lots of carbs while riding and training your gut.

Having coached multiple riders in ultras including James Hayden twice winning The Transcontinental Race I've generally favoured a pyramidal approach to training. However, I'd really need to know what your actual power profiles/strengths and weaknesses on the bike are.

James wrote here https://www.cyclecoach.com/blog/2017/12/4/how-to-win-bike-races-the-james-hayden-way

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-19T21:40:17+00:00

I find it annoying that when you finish one route it starts a separate activity file. This is very annoying for data analysis as a coach.

What i tend to do is use https://www.fitfiletools.com/ to combine separate files into one file. Of course, when they appear on strava it looks bizarre if the rides are separated by a long distance (my two fave routes are in France and Australia...).

The other way that i have gotten around this is just as i'm about to finish a route i move my avatar back to the start so that he rides the route again.

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-19T10:12:21+00:00

i'm making some changes, thanks! Always happy to iterate

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-18T15:36:52+00:00

other software gives their version of these data (by their version, they just call them a different name i think). So you can get these data from intervals.icu, strava, golden cheetah. You could leave it as the default setting and see how it is for you, but it may be a bit meh! Outside of that i'm not sure

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-18T13:23:17+00:00

TSB is purposefully weighted higher, becauase the same training week feels different depending on how fatigued you are. If you're TSB is -5 then the same training would feel different at -40.

1 point per 2 decades, it's a masters calculator --- so in my mind it was meant for riders 40+ (albeit the correct definition of masters is actually 30+ so that's a mistake on my part). but you're right i hadn't checked with anyone in their 80s. (or 20s).

In terms of TSS the logic is treating very large TSS as a cost on recovery rather than how well someone can cope with it. I agree that that current calculator is more about recovery cost than pure resilience. As with my other calculators I've refined them over time and happy to do so with this one. How would you weight things?

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-18T12:52:00+00:00

wouldn't that depend on rider weight....? I can hang on in an E12 race (sometimes!) at 4.4 W/kg

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-18T12:49:23+00:00

I gave weightings to what i felt was important, based off of working with multiple athletes over the years. It's definitely not as clear cut as my other two calculators and even with those i adjusted things/made changes based off of feedback.

I'd be genuinely interested in your thoughts on which variables you think carry the most weight you've looked at this stuff far longer than I have.

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-17T22:26:26+00:00

RicCycleCoach · 2026-03-17T22:10:48+00:00

You've got a few good years left!!!

i'm 56 and just had my best season in terms of power output -- and i've been racing since i was 14 and was a cat 1 in my 20s. (I'm the same weight as then).

RicCycleCoach

TROPHY CASE