Modern trend for extremely low gearing

[Archie_tect]

Ah McEwan's 80 shilling... 27p a can in 1977.

 

[DRM]

Come to think about it what happened to all those old British brands?

They're all for sale alongside British motor bikes & British Leyland/Rootes Group cars, & Albion/Scammel/Commer trucks

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Anything over 20p a can is a waste of good money, it is all the same stuff you have been conned by the shiny adverts into thinking it tastes different.

Wrong. I'm pretty fussy about my beer and I don't drink cans as a rule. Nearly all bottled for home consumption and quite a bit is bottle conditioned. I take full advantage of any multibuy offers to get the best value.

No marketing hype scam, they’re designed to do a job, and do it well, and if bike manufacturers don’t sell enough bikes, they go bust, it’s responding to market demands, which really doesn’t include 1980’s Raleigh bikes

I really really can't recall ever thinking "my old triple equipped bikes are really useless, so what I need is a single chainring instead" The market never demanded 1 x transmissions at all, it was the industry that started pushing them. Same goes for different wheel sizes and suspension. For what most riders actually use their bikes for you don't need suspension, you don't need dropper seatposts, you don't need 1 x gears, and you don't need stupidly long wheelbases combined with ultra-slack geometry.
The actual proportion of riders who gain anything from modern design trends is tiny, because only a tiny minority do anything more extreme than riding on gravel tracks and tame dirt banks in woods.
What happened is the bikes made back in the 80's and 90's were so practical as multi-purpose machines that riders saw no need to keep replacing them. All the 27.5" and 29'er hype and the long wheelbase full sus stuff was just an attempt to push bikes that most riders simply didn't and don't need. I don't need to buy a "gravel" bike as my steel touring and hybrid frames will take decent size tyres even with mudguards fitted, and the MTB/Touring gearing means they will go anywhere the tyres can find traction. I already have "gravel" bikes, they just aren't called that.

 

[screenman]

Wrong. I'm pretty fussy about my beer and I don't drink cans as a rule. Nearly all bottled for home consumption and quite a bit is bottle conditioned. I take full advantage of any multibuy offers to get the best value.



I really really can't recall ever thinking "my old triple equipped bikes are really useless, so what I need is a single chainring instead" The market never demanded 1 x transmissions at all, it was the industry that started pushing them. Same goes for different wheel sizes and suspension. For what most riders actually use their bikes for you don't need suspension, you don't need dropper seatposts, you don't need 1 x gears, and you don't need stupidly long wheelbases combined with ultra-slack geometry.
The actual proportion of riders who gain anything from modern design trends is tiny, because only a tiny minority do anything more extreme than riding on gravel tracks and tame dirt banks in woods.
What happened is the bikes made back in the 80's and 90's were so practical as multi-purpose machines that riders saw no need to keep replacing them. All the 27.5" and 29'er hype and the long wheelbase full sus stuff was just an attempt to push bikes that most riders simply didn't and don't need. I don't need to buy a "gravel" bike as my steel touring and hybrid frames will take decent size tyres even with mudguards fitted, and the MTB/Touring gearing means they will go anywhere the tyres can find traction. Ialready have "gravel" bikes, they just aren't called that.

I think I have you worked out, you do not like spending money and dislike even more those that do for some reason.

 

[Blue Hills]

Have you got a choice of different beers to drink? Or do you stick to the Tesco own brand one. Money, marketing, that word that a lot on here hate so much profit, stop sounding like your dad's and realise not every cyclist wants the same thing, I certainly do not want to be scavenging in skips for my bikes.

plenty of great beers around and I have the impression that Skipdiver enjoys a range regularly - beer is a curious thing for you to choose as an example for of course there's also a lot of marketing bollocks thrown at (up into?) beer - weak wishy washy slop that some marketeer would have you believe is special in some way.

 

[Hacienda71]

Why we ever changed from penny farthings I will never know.

 

[byegad]

Why we ever changed from penny farthings I will never know.

Nah! Coming down from the trees was a bad idea, and some people query leaving the sea!

 

[fossyant]

Thats where gravel bikes come in, best of both worlds innit

Nope. Compromised in both respects. MTB for gnarly stuff, road bikes for tarmac.

 

[fossyant]

I think I have you worked out, you do not like spending money and dislike even more those that do for some reason.

He's also not ridden a modern MTB. I love my old 90's MTB, but it can't do anything like as well as my full sus can do. Oh and it has a dropper which is a fantastic bit of kit, especially when going down very steep rocky descents. Saves the plumbs from a battering.

 

[Jody]

He's also not ridden a modern MTB.

Same old broken record. Here's what I think and you're all wrong

 

[ColinJ]

When I moved to the US in the 80s I was gobsmacked that they put filling onto sandwiches using an ice cream scoop, not spread thinly with a small knife.

Years back, a colleague of mine had to work in the USA for a couple of weeks. His hosts took him out to their local diner for breakfast, proudly telling him that it was excellent value. He was given a 10 inch plate piled so high with food that it was overflowing onto the tray on which it was delivered to him. He said that he could only manage about 1/4 of it! The hosts asked if he didn't like it; why hadn't he eaten it all? (They finished theirs, and then ordered pancakes!)

 

[DRM]

Nope. Compromised in both respects. MTB for gnarly stuff, road bikes for tarmac.

Wrong, on road straight from home, wonder where that bridleway goes, go and have a look, full suss MTB useless on road, overkill on bridleways, perfect for really rough off road, road spot on on road, forget anything else.

 

[DRM]

Wrong. I'm pretty fussy about my beer and I don't drink cans as a rule. Nearly all bottled for home consumption and quite a bit is bottle conditioned. I take full advantage of any multibuy offers to get the best value.



I really really can't recall ever thinking "my old triple equipped bikes are really useless, so what I need is a single chainring instead" The market never demanded 1 x transmissions at all, it was the industry that started pushing them. Same goes for different wheel sizes and suspension. For what most riders actually use their bikes for you don't need suspension, you don't need dropper seatposts, you don't need 1 x gears, and you don't need stupidly long wheelbases combined with ultra-slack geometry.
The actual proportion of riders who gain anything from modern design trends is tiny, because only a tiny minority do anything more extreme than riding on gravel tracks and tame dirt banks in woods.
What happened is the bikes made back in the 80's and 90's were so practical as multi-purpose machines that riders saw no need to keep replacing them. All the 27.5" and 29'er hype and the long wheelbase full sus stuff was just an attempt to push bikes that most riders simply didn't and don't need. I don't need to buy a "gravel" bike as my steel touring and hybrid frames will take decent size tyres even with mudguards fitted, and the MTB/Touring gearing means they will go anywhere the tyres can find traction. I already have "gravel" bikes, they just aren't called that.

Old triple's aren't useless, quite the opposite, but things move on, my gravel bike does everything I want it to do, I don't do really rough MTB'ing anymore as A: I don't bounce like I used to, B: It's a pain loading the car up to go for a ride off road somewhere when I can jump on the gravel bike straight from home, same as the road bike jump on it and go for a spin on road, it's that simple.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Hauling this back from economics and beer, this is a clip from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_gearing which offers data aka facts.
"The approximate gear ranges which follow are merely indicative of typical gearing setups, and will vary somewhat from bicycle to bicycle." ['range' is the percentage of the highest gear over the lowest)

range	transmission	usable gears	mean step
180%	3-speed hub gears	3	34.2%
250%	5-speed hub gears	5	25.7%
300%	7-speed hub gears	7	20.1%
307%	8-speed hub gears	8	17.4%
327%	typical 1 chainring derailleur setup (1x10, 11-36)	10	14.1%
327%	road 1 chainring derailleur setup (1x11, 11-36)	11	12.6%
380%	NuVinci continuously variable transmission[8]	continuous	none
409%	11-speed hub gears	11	15.1%
420%	mountain 1 chainring derailleur setup (1x11, 10-42)	11	15.4%
428%	road 2 chainring derailleur setup (2x10, 50-34 x 11-32)	13	12.9%
441%	road 3 chainring derailleur setup (3x10, 52/39/30 x 11-28)	15	11.2%
500%	extreme 1 chainring derailleur setup (1x12, 10-50)	12	15.8%
518%	mountain 2 chainring derailleur setup (2x10, 38-24 x 11-36)	14	13.5%
526%	Rohloff Speedhub 14-speed hub gear	14	13.6%
630%	Mountain 2x11 derailleur setup (24/36 x 10-42)[9]	14	15.2%
636%	18-speed bottom bracket gearbox[10]	18	11.5%
655%	mountain 3 chainring derailleur setup (3x10, 44-33-22 x 11-36)	16	13.3%
698%	touring 3 chainring derailleur setup (3x10, 48-34-20 x 11-32)	15	14.9%

 

[Justinslow]

Anyway....
Here’s the bike I linked to earlier, Carbon, light, hardtail, built for XC and racing, could have been many “mountain” bikes I could have found, with a 51 at the back and a 30 up front. I get it that old fangled triples had even smaller front rings but they didn’t have 51’s at the back. It just puzzles me that a bike designed for fast XC would need such a set up? Why not have a closer spaced cassette that is less big?
I understand that some people do use them for very steep inclines and obviously I’m coming at it from my own experience and where I ride where that gearing would be useless (forest centres, around fields etc), I’ve got 10 speed 34 up front and 42 at the back and i don’t think I’ll ever use the 42 so effectively I’m riding a 9 speed.
Maybe for what I ride a “mountain” bike is wasted on me, maybe what I should be riding is a gravel bike?