I need more teeth

Besides what 90% of the people in West Virginia say, my bike sprockets too, need more teeth. I recently increased the front sprockets from 50 tooth to 52 tooth and had a HUGE jump in my riding speed average. Two weeks ago, it took me five hours to go 71 miles. Yesterday the same distance took 4 hours and 10 minutes and the total distance of 80 miles took 15 minutes less than 5 hours. I am getting more fit and comfortable on the bike, but in a two week span the only thing that could explain the amazingly huge decreased time is the larger sprocket.

Here is where my bike is limited: I have a compact crank set which means the bolt center diameter on the sprockets and crank arms is 110 mm. Apparently that’s the new craze. The bad part is that the largest sprocket I can get with a compact crank set is 53 teeth.  A traditional (since bikes were made) bolt center diameter is 130 mm, and the largest sprocket I saw was 56 teeth.

That being said, I don’t think I’m strong or conditioned enough to use a sprocket with 56 teeth (as the sprockets get larger, it gets harder to pedal, but the tires turn more with each revolution thus making you faster with the same energy output as if you had a smaller sprocket). Ideally, I’d like to have 54 teeth, but am currently searching for a very inexpensive 53 tooth sprocket that will fit my compact crank set.

I probably lost half of everyone reading, but the gist of the story is that having more teeth makes you go faster, both in the dating world and on the bike.