Gearing for Monte Zoncolan

In 2007 Giro many riders had the lowest gears possible to scale the terrible ascent of Zoncolan, with 34 X 29 compact mounted on the bicycle of Maglia Rosa Di Luca, and some riders were even using triple chainsets, says Velonews.

Jussi Veikkanen (FDJ) was using "tourist gearing" 34 X 27 in Monte Zoncolan. Jussi was 18th at the top of Monte Zoncolan.

In 2010 Giro, Lennard Zinn reported in velonews that "Ivan Basso riding in a 36 X 29, while Vincenzo Nibali and the rest of the Liquigas team struggled a bit more with the gear. But BMC’s Cadel Evans was just barely behind Basso where he passed by with 3.5km to go, and he was doing fine with a 34 X 27. Julian Dean and other Garmin riders came by me with the same 34 X 27 gear.

Damiano Cunego, Gibo Simoni, and the other Lampre riders, as well as Pippo Pozzato and the other Katusha riders pushed their Campy setups all the way to 34 X 29. Alexander Vinokourov and his remaining Astana teammates may have had the widest gear range on Monte Zoncolan: 53-34 X 11-28, and their derailleurs seemed to handle it just fine. Carlos Sastre and other Cervelo riders were also using a 34 X 28, as was Rabobank and Ag2R. Stefano Garzelli and his Aqua & Sapone teammates rode 34 X 28 on the Zoncolan.

Bradley Wiggins and other riders on Sky using oval Osymetric chainrings rode a 38 X 28 up the Zoncolan, while round-ring-riding Sky riders like Michael Barry pushed a 36 X 28. Milram and Columbia-HTC also rode 36 X 28, while Bbox chose Evans’ gearing: 34 X 27."

Interestingly, Alberto Contador was using 34×32 gearing in 2011 Giro. According to Andrew Hood in velonews, this allowed him to keep a high cadence on the ramps as steep as 22 percent.

This information causes a lot of headache for Team Zoncolan...