# CAAD9-5 Compact or standard?



## ClaytonT (Aug 23, 2009)

I ordered my *first* road bike over a month ago and I am still waiting for it to come in. 2010 CAAD9-5
Right now I ride a hybrid which is currently a glorified fixie because the gear changing mechanism is broken and I don't want to spend money to fix it. 

I initially ordered a compact, but when cannondale shipped the wrong colored model (gray, I wanted blue) last week I took it for a test ride for about an hour. 
I found myself staying in the 3rd ring near exclusively while only reverting down to second going up mediocre hills. I honestly don't foresee myself ever using the first ring. Going down the hills, I found myself in the last gear (sorry don't know the lingo) and I wanted to go faster. The next day I told my lbs that I would like to change my order to a standard. 

We have plenty of hills in Eugene, OR and most of my riding will be in this city. I'm 25 and in pretty good shape. I've looked around this forum and most people tend to lean towards recommending a compact. My lbs suggested that the compact would be better for 100k/mile trips versus short around town trips. I can see myself doing long trips, but not with any kind of regularity. While I didn't use the first ring at all while test riding the compact; I can't imagine 1-1 being any faster than walking. 

What I am looking for here are more experienced riders who own Cannondale's and their suggestions. Do you have a compact or standard on your CAAD9? Did I make the right decision in changing my order to a standard? Does it even matter?


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## fireplug (Nov 19, 2008)

If your are planning to ride in the city and on hills (not mountains) I would go for the compact.


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## Dan Gerous (Mar 28, 2005)

The steeper and longer the climbs you have, the more a lower gear will help. If it's more flat and most climbs are either short or not too steep, you can get away with bigger gears no problems. But I wouldn't go with a triple unless you ride incredibly long and steep climbs regularly. To me, a compact is a good do it-all-range and I love to tackle big climbs. I haven't seen climbs I couldn't climb with a compact (except one near the France/Spain border, it was well over 20% and it was actually hard to climb by walking, my friend couldn't walk on the pavement as his shoes just slid down the hill).


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## asad137 (Jul 29, 2009)

Cannondale shipped a 9-5 with a triple chainring? I didn't even think that config was available.

Asad


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## Dan Gerous (Mar 28, 2005)

Weird, parts of my post vanished... 

I was asking the OP if he meant Compact vs. Standard or Compact vs. Triple as he mentioned being on the third ring...


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## jscumbie (Jul 15, 2009)

*Were you riding a triple?*

OP, Were you riding a triple of a compact? You refer to riding in the 3rd ring and 2nd ring, but not the 1st ring. That sounds like you have 3 rings in the front, which is a triple. 

If you have 2 rings in the front, the 2 options are a standard or a compact. The standard has bigger rings than the compact. Standard is good for flatter terrain and Compact is good for hilly terrain since it is geared slightly lower than a standard. The 2 negatives that I have found to the compact are:

1. You lose a little bit at the top end if you are going to be riding at speeds over 35 mph.
2. There seems to be more overlap in the gearing between the 2 chainrings. This means that when you shift the front chainrings, you have to shift the rear 3 or 4 gears in the opposite direction to get to an equivalent ratio. On a standard, you will probably shift 2 to 3 gears to get to an equivalent ratio.

I, personally, would recommend against a triple. The compact is a very nice compromise if plan to be riding on any hills at all.

Here are the "standard" size (tooth count) on the 3 options:

Standard: 53 / 39
Compact: 50 / 34
Triple: 50 / 39 / 30 

The more teeth you have on the front chainring the farther the bike will travel on one pedal revolution.

If you are concerned about losing speed on the top end, then you could consider a groupset that allows you to use a rear cassette with the smallest gear at 11 teeth. The Shimano Tiagra doesn't allow anything smaller than 12 teeth.

Also, for climbing, you could consider a cassette that has the largest number of teeth possible for the largest gear. I think Tiagra allows 27.

My current CAAD9-1 with a Compact and an 11-28 rear cassette has more top and bottom end then my previous Standard with a 12-27 rear cassette. So, Compact worked for me.

If you want to dig into gearing ratios, the following website allows to you try all different combinations of front an rear gear sizes:

http://www.panix.com/~jbarrm/cycal/cycal.30f.html


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## Hank Stamper (Sep 9, 2009)

I ride in the city (fairly flat) and get out to the mountains in Maine and New Hampshire quite a bit and have been fine with the standard on my CAAD in both. 

I've done plenty of over 100km rides and been fine as well.

I'm not really sure what you're comparing the standard too but in summary from what you said about yourself and your riding I think you made the right move.


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## ClaytonT (Aug 23, 2009)

So I was wrong. 

I don't know why I thought it had a triple.

I shared my concerns with my LBS manager, he assured me that there isn't that much of a difference, but that if I ever wanted to race I should have standard (not sure if I ever will). He also mentioned that it would be easy to change to a compact if I wanted.


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