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What gear ratios do they run?
Typically 11-23 and 42/52 for normal days and 11-25 and 39/53 for hilly ones. Obviously some riders will have different preferences
sastre uses 38/52 Q-rings and 11-23 all the time. apparently
saying that Tyler hamilton and Floyd landis used 36/52 compacts in the mountains( as well as illegal Subs...)
lots of riders on 38-26/28 if on sram
contador is running 38-28
anyone use compacts or triples then? Even the big sprinters or fast cadencers?
No one on triples, a few use compacts on the hilly stages. A sprinter on a compact would be severely handicapped, you'd run out of gears!
A lot of them will likely run 11-21 blocks on the flat stages.
Triples (before compacts came out) and compacts have been used on silly steep climbs like the Angliru but not normally on other climbs.
Compacts have been used occasionally on some of the silly steep Pyrenees stuff but it's rare that the Tour visits such terrain. Most of the time a 38/39 inner and 52/53 outer. 11-23 cassette, maybe 11 (or 12)-25 in the Alps/Pyrenees.
As trev says, Sastre and a couple of others use those Rotor cranks with the Q-rings (oval chainrings similar to old Shimano Biopace).
Q-rings (oval chainrings similar to old Shimano Biopace).
Similar in the sense neither is round? 🙄
Well Q-rings are exactly the same theory, but done right, as they're rotated by 90 degrees compared to Biopace.
Most Alpine/Pyraneen climbs aren't that steep, if I can get up 20% (short) climbs round here on a 39/23 bottom gear I'm sure most of them have the legs to keep that turning for a long time on a shallower gradient!