Shifting can't keep up with my acceleration I noticed that when I really give it hell after stopping or riding slow (I do that all the time on commute), I have to shift two gears at a time in the lower gears, to keep up with my acceleration. I then asked myself whether there's any better way for the shifting to keep up with my acceleration. The shifting process itself goes very smooth and I can time it very well in my opinion.

Also, how do real bike racers do it?
The reason I ask is that I hardly believe that racers always loose time with shifting over several gears before the next "thrust". Or does that not cause lots of time loss?


  Do racing bikes have special gear ratios for optimizing speed of the shifting process?


I only cycle as a commuter (just 3.6km), but I probably behave somewhat like a racer (regarding speed) as well on that short route.
Remember, very few road racers are giving it hell from a standing start. The vast majority of the time they are traveling at a fairly high rate of speed as they approach the end of the race (With the lead out for the sprint, positioning, etc), so the need to jump multiple gears is very limited.

Other times where quick acceleration is needed is to jump a gap or catch a potential breakaway, take advantage of a person lagging on a climb, things of this nature. Again, they are traveling at speed, not from a standing start.

The reason that you have to jump gears is that it is easy to push the gears (low torque), but you quickly speed up past the point where the gear is effective, and depending on your cassette, you may have already almost passed the speed where the next gear up is effective.

Also, road racers often swap gearing in their cassettes, but this is to match the gearing to the terrain. If you are going to be in a mostly flat race, there is no need to have a 28 tooth large cog in the back, so they might go with an 11-20. Conversely, if there is a lot of steep climbing, they may swap to some kind of 12-28 (or greater) configuration.

Track bikes (Which would have more relevance to short burst from standing starts in some of the events) have no gearing, they are fixed.