Bottom gear BSO riders

[Black Sheep]

Perhaps in some cases because gears are knotty-plexicated.
As a child I had a bike with 3 gears. It was never explained to me what they did, so I just pootled around on my bike as kids do (probably in 1 all the time).

Then I learned to drive and got the idea of what gears do.

Then I got a 21-gear bike. And I could not work it out. Because nobody explained to me that on a bike, you don't start in 1st and make your way up to 21st. I could get moving in 1st (i.e. 1 on both gears), and quickly find myself moving up the gears until I was in 1/7; but then what? My next move would be to 2/7, when surely I'd want 2/1????

Yes, you are all laughing at this. But it pretty much kept me off the bike for 10 years - I bought it, I couldn't get it to work, it sat in our hall gathering dust. Perhaps I should have gone back to the very nice LBS who sold me the bike, and had it explained, but it seemed too stupid to ask. My husband - not a cyclist - found it very amusing, and said 'but you drive a car,you know what gears do'. Basically, I thought I should understand it, and the fact that I didn't wasn't something to advertise!

It was only when someone very patient explained to me what the 'left thingy' and the 'right thingy' were actually for that I understood. And started to use my bike, with its 21 (but not actually 21) gears. And now it seems straightforward, and I could explain it to someone else. But equally, my mother is still better off with her simple 1-2-3 hub gears!

I think that the bike you buy from a not-a-bike-shop these days is a multi-geared hugely suspensioned mountain bike, not suited to what most people actually need. And if they don't get the nuances of how it works, well, they can just pootle along with how it is set up and so that's what they do.

and people give me funny looks when I tell them my mountain bike has 1 gear and my road bike has 4 and a half gears

 

[apollo179]

Whats that bit btween the seat tube and down tube???

Needs that bit to stop it breaking.
Thats a dwarfs bike that is.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

and people give me funny looks when I tell them my mountain bike has 1 gear and my road bike has 4 and a half gears

Go on I'll bite - How doe sit have 4.5 gears?

 

[Christopher]

OP has left out the cliche that the rear brake is detached or missing altogether because the rear wheel is well out of true, or even buckled. See plenty of people like that around here, they don't bother me and I don't bother them.

Actually the only person that bothers me is the guy who rides a cheap MTB in top gear. He commutes year-round in footy shorts, no knee-warmers or anything else and has to stand pretty much all the time as he's in such a high gear. Great way to wreck your knees, but it's his choice.