Designing a bike solely for climbing...

[colker]

Originally Posted by joosttx

You are not foolish if you have multiple road bikes to make a climbing-specific bike. I really don't think you need anything but a compact crank with a big cassette on the back. What I would do is have a killer road bike frame with a compact and then two sets of wheels. 1) Aero wheels with a say 11X28ish cassette and 2) ultralight "climbing" wheels with a big cassette on the back. If you campy bora ultra II and hyperons will serve the purpose.

I wonder if a very light tubular wheelset w/ nisi, mavic or ambrosio 36 h rims built by someone who knows what he is doing wouldn´t do the trick. Won´t be in the same classe as Bora or Hyperons but not everybody has those. If you keep rims at 350gr light hubs and not that thin spokes you can have a sweet climbing wheelset... w/ tubular tires.

[Dave]

In contrast, I think that the shimano 11-34 would be horrible, but it's also only 11 speed, not 12. It has horrible 11-13-15-17 jumps where they should all be 1T jumps and changes that are too small between the larger sprockets. No thank you.

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by joosttx

You are not foolish if you have multiple road bikes to make a climbing-specific bike. I really don't think you need anything but a compact crank with a big cassette on the back. What I would do is have a killer road bike frame with a compact and then two sets of wheels. 1) Aero wheels with a say 11X28ish cassette and 2) ultralight "climbing" wheels with a big cassette on the back. If you campy bora ultra II and hyperons will serve the purpose.

Well, kudos on having one road bike and one MTB. Frankly, I think this is ideal. Maybe one road, one "all-road" and one MTB.