diff --git a/crates/fib/src/kernel.rs b/crates/fib/src/kernel.rs
index 9f35304..5e14cab 100644
--- a/crates/fib/src/kernel.rs
+++ b/crates/fib/src/kernel.rs
@@ -34,8 +34,11 @@ use crate::routes::KernelRoutes;
 use crate::topology::Topology;
 use crate::{Fib, FibConfig, FibError, Stop};
 
-/// How many best routes are taken from the routing table at a time.
-const BATCH: usize = 1024;
+/// How many best routes are taken from the routing table at a time. A
+/// poll of the table costs two binary searches and a lock in every shard,
+/// however few events it brings back; with a few hundred shards, a batch
+/// of a thousand had that overhead for every eight events a shard.
+const BATCH: usize = 16384;
 
 /// How many requests are sent to the kernel in one write.
 const WRITE_BATCH: usize = 512;