So many gears, pointless?

[JPBoothy]

Aside from my fixed (48/18) , I have little idea or interest what gears are on my bikes. I have a 9-speed triple but no idea what the chainrings or cassette is. I have 10-speed and 11-speed bikes, each with 50/34 rings on the front but I can’t remember and don’t care what’s on the back. I just ride!

Ha Ha, I am of the same mind.. When folk start talking about Gear Inches, Watts, Cadence and RPM all I hear is blah blah blah

I am not knocking anybody for discussing those things though, it is just a bit too in depth for my own interest level. It's always good to know you techy folk are out there though for when I am in need of help

 

[JPBoothy]

Yes, it was the A58, as seen from near the White House car park. That's Hollingworth Lake in the distance.


I have been known to get distracted...!

Did you manage to get your cycling shorts clean afterwards or did you just bin them

 

[ColinJ]

Did you manage to get your cycling shorts clean afterwards or did you just bin them

It WAS one of those moments! I go down there a lot and 90+% of the time the wind helps keep me safe. I just hadn't considered the different conditions that day.

Getting back to gears... If I had a high enough gear, I would just get up to my descending speed more rapidly, but no way would/could I be pedalling at over 50 mph no matter what top gear I had at my disposal! I'm quite happy with a 48/12 top gear.

I like having a 28/30 bottom gear and smallish steps in between gears.

If I didn't have the tough hills of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire to tackle on a regular basis then I wouldn't want/need many of the extra gears that I enjoy now.

 

[screenman]

Not quite the true picture though, is it? If you avoid only the most extreme small/small and large/large combos, your highest small ring gear will likely be in the mid 50's and your lowest big ring gear will be in the low 40's. If you are really kind to your transmission and avoid the TWO most misaligned combos in both large and small rings, the situation is worse still. That means more double-changes are needed, which costs you momentum, and on a gradient momentum really matters. When I go up a gradient on a 2x or 3x transmission bike, I decide which ring I'm going to do the climb in at the bottom, and I stay in it until I mount the summit, only changing rear gears if absolutely necessary. Changing rings mid-climb, to me, means I made a bad choice of gearing at the start.
The middle ring of a triple is a good general purpose range, that will get you up must climbs and is fast enough on the flat for leisure cycling at an easy pace. Plenty of London riders only ever use their middle ring from my own observations!



I've got news for you @screenman; Norfolk isn't dead flat. Granted, it's not the hilliest of counties, and Cornishmen will be saying "call them hills? " - but it does have a few steep bits nonetheless, both rural and urban. Go into the centre of Norwich and check for yourself!

I have been to Norfolk many times and often cycled there, I would have taken a bike with more gears that some I guess. Choice you see, nothing else. As you may Know I am a Londoner living and cycling it Lincolnshire and we have hill here as well.

 

[wafter]

Agree totally - a two or three years ago I went looking for a new expedition tourer.
Of course I checked out the Surly Long Haul Trucker as it is very well regarded as a tough beast and Surly seem to promote it as a non nonsense workhorse for serious use.
So I was shocked to see that it had gone to ten speed on the standard build available from shops.
I could see no reason at all for this.
A very friendly shop did look into building one up for me as a nine speed but in the end I went for the Ridgeback Expedition 2016 model.
Ridgeback know a thing or two about bikes.
This is it, though that spec does list the brakes incorrectly (actually they are Vs).
https://www.evanscycles.com/ridgeback-expedition-2016-touring-bike-EV258092

Key info on gears:
Front: 48/38/28
Rear 9 speed 12-36

The gearing is a joy. Fully loaded I have whizzed along a (fortunately flat) Norfolk road to get to a campsite before dark and have also been up the steepest hills with no need to walk.

If Surly, screenman or anyone else can tell me what on earth I would gain by going above 9 speed on that bike I'd love to know.

By the by, PlanetX sent me info this the other day - latest incarnation of the Cinelli steel tourer the other day.

https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/FBCINHBL/cinelli-hobootleg-easy-travel-sora-bike

Saw an earlier model at a show a few years ago and was very impressed by the sensible spec, though I personally don't go for drops.

Also 9 speed.

In 2020 - well fancy that

Both look like nice bikes; especially the Cinelli (I think you're missing a trick with the flat bars )

To be fair it seems that touring bikes "lag" considerably behind the trends found in road bikes; I'd hazard a guess that this is for three reasons:

- Tourers are potentially older and hence more "traditional" in their choices; plus possibly more learned on account of their advancing years and less taken in by the marketing dross
- Touring riders are perhaps less likely to be concerned by the key selling points of higher-end road-focussed groupsets - i.e. weight
- Touring bikes are likely to be used in "less developed" parts of the world, where old-tech is more likely to be the available standard
- Touring bikes potentially need a lower, wider gearing range considering the greater loads they're expected to lug up hills
- Reliability and lognevity are likely to be of greater concern for mile-munching touring bikes than road cycles that see many relatively short journeys; both two facets that tend to be sacrificed in the name of "performance" in higher-end road groupsets
- Touring bikes often come with a lot more kit so at a given price point have lower-end groupsets to compensate; opening up the lower end of the road groupset market which still offers triples


While I don't really have a problem with the 2x10 and 2x11 groupsets on my current bikes, I'd not have an issue running a decent triple on either and tbh do miss the closer-chainring spacing of my old triple (which required fewer changes on the cassette to compensate for the swap on the front) as well as the closer ratios on the cassette.

I do hate all this touting of 1x drivetrains (with their massive ratio jumps, expensive wear parts and inferior transmission efficiency) however can to an extent appreciate their benefits for off-road use where simplicity is a bonus and consistant cadence is much less of a concern. I doubt it'll happen but if 1x ever makes any significant in-roads into road biking; it will truly be a victory for marketing rubbish over sanity IMO.

That's exactly my approach. If I've had to slog my way to the top of a gradient I'm buggered if I'm going to put any more effort whatsoever into going back down the other side!. I just amble over the peak of any climb at barely more than walking pace then relax and the ride down comes for free. Normally there's more than enough potential energy stored up at the summit to go plenty fast enough down, often way too much. Pedalling down sounds like an act of lunacy.

In addition to that, if average speeds are of concern the most efficient place to expend your energy is on the uphill where aero drag is the least.

I must admit though, often my descents are made down on the drops with my chin as close to the stem as possible, to wring as much speed as possible out of my potential energy investment!

So what is the benefit of having a wide range at the front and at the rear?

For one, a greater range overall; regardless of the overlap (which would most likely be less than with a comparable double I'd guess).

 

[JPBoothy]

It WAS one of those moments! I go down there a lot and 90+% of the time the wind helps keep me safe. I just hadn't considered the different conditions that day.

Getting back to gears... If I had a high enough gear, I would just get up to my descending speed more rapidly, but no way would/could I be pedalling at over 50 mph no matter what top gear I had at my disposal! I'm quite happy with a 48/12 top gear.

I like having a 28/30 bottom gear and smallish steps in between gears.

If I didn't have the tough hills of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire to tackle on a regular basis then I wouldn't want/need many of the extra gears that I enjoy now.

I only ever touched 50mph once on a descent in North Wales with a few mates. As we approached the top of a lung busting ascent I remembered something that I'd read from Dave Lloyd (I think) about digging deep for a final sprint over the top rather than wasting all of that effort by letting the person who has drafted you all the way up suddenly whizz by while you pause for a breath at the top. In theory that is probably good advice if you are racing, in reality when you are just out with mates in unfamiliar hills it is not! After launching myself down what felt like a loose gravelly Welsh version of the Cresta Run I could just make out 'through the tears in my eyes' that a cattle grid lay in wait at the bottom but, because of the gravel I was too scared to brake and decided to just hold on tight and take my chances. I remember having enough time to think "oh ####, where will the Air Ambulance be able to land?" before feeling a quick buzz through my seat post and it was all over and I had survived.. Never have I ever gone over 30mph since.

 

[Twilkes]

I only ever touched 50mph once on a descent in North Wales with a few mates. As we approached the top of a lung busting ascent I remembered something that I'd read from Dave Lloyd (I think) about digging deep for a final sprint over the top rather than wasting all of that effort by letting the person who has drafted you all the way up suddenly whizz by while you pause for a breath at the top. In theory that is probably good advice if you are racing, in reality when you are just out with mates in unfamiliar hills it is not! After launching myself down what felt like a loose gravelly Welsh version of the Cresta Run I could just make out 'through the tears in my eyes' that a cattle grid lay in wait at the bottom but, because of the gravel I was too scared to brake and decided to just hold on tight and take my chances. I remember having enough time to think "oh ####, where will the Air Ambulance be able to land?" before feeling a quick buzz through my seat post and it was all over and I had survived.. Never have I ever gone over 30mph since.

If you were going fast enough, you could probably have bunny hopped the cattle grid. 53/11 all the way down.

 

[simongt]

Saw a dual susser in the bike shed at work last week. Was much amused that the transmission appeared to have been reversed. The single chainwheel was about a 38 tooth and the biggest cog on the cassette looked around a 50 tooth - !

 

[Tigerbiten]

This is the bit that I don't get with a lot of cyclists. They are obsessed with having gears that allow them to pedal at their max cadence downhill! The way I look at it, unless you ride a fixed gear, there's no such thing as spinning out. If you get to an uncomfortably fast cadence you simply slow down a bit, or in the case of descending, you stop pedalling altogether and let gravity do the work not your legs.

One reason I like my 179" top gear is that I don't spin out.
I'm only at about 70 rpm at 40 mph downhill.
At that cadence and speed it's more about keeping the leg muscles warm and shifting any lactic acid of them rather than trying to get the last mph out of the descent.
But I am on a low recumbent trike with a front fairing so it makes very little difference to my aero resistance if I pedal or not.

Luck ...........

 

[avecReynolds531]

With regard to gearing at the top end, my road bike has 50/12. I haven't missed the previous taller gears that the 53 chain ring offered (but definitely preferred the lower gears that a 34 chain ring provides). The cassette is 10 speed 12-25.

There are four kilometres, in the middle of the Ventoux descent into Malaucene, where you can achieve crazy speeds. There's no way I would attempt to pedal that section: we bottled out and touched the brakes around 54mph, when it was clear the bike would freewheel well beyond that speed.

Cyclists with more skill & courage than me, could enjoy 53/11 (or more!) on that magical route. For those interested, here's an idea of what it's like:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09j2MJyZjcE

 

[Venod]

Saw a dual susser in the bike shed at work last week. Was much amused that the transmission appeared to have been reversed. The single chainwheel was about a 38 tooth and the biggest cog on the cassette looked around a 50 tooth - !

Thats an high geared one, my latest MTB had 30 up front and 10-50 rear, it now has 34 up front.

 

[Twilkes]

One reason I like my 179" top gear is that I don't spin out.
I'm only at about 70 rpm at 40 mph downhill.
At that cadence and speed it's more about keeping the leg muscles warm and shifting any lactic acid of them rather than trying to get the last mph out of the descent.

That resonates with me, I would rather reduce my cadence going downhill in a bigger gear than have to descend at 100rpm+, feels much more smooth and stable. I was surprised to find my 48/11 hybrid is a bigger gear than my 50/12 road bike.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Agree totally - a two or three years ago I went looking for a new expedition tourer.
Of course I checked out the Surly Long Haul Trucker as it is very well regarded as a tough beast and Surly seem to promote it as a non nonsense workhorse for serious use.
So I was shocked to see that it had gone to ten speed on the standard build available from shops.
I could see no reason at all for this.
A very friendly shop did look into building one up for me as a nine speed but in the end I went for the Ridgeback Expedition 2016 model.
Ridgeback know a thing or two about bikes.
This is it, though that spec does list the brakes incorrectly (actually they are Vs).
https://www.evanscycles.com/ridgeback-expedition-2016-touring-bike-EV258092

Key info on gears:
Front: 48/38/28
Rear 9 speed 12-36

The gearing is a joy. Fully loaded I have whizzed along a (fortunately flat) Norfolk road to get to a campsite before dark and have also been up the steepest hills with no need to walk.

If Surly, screenman or anyone else can tell me what on earth I would gain by going above 9 speed on that bike I'd love to know.

By the by, PlanetX sent me info this the other day - latest incarnation of the Cinelli steel tourer the other day.

https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/FBCINHBL/cinelli-hobootleg-easy-travel-sora-bike

Saw an earlier model at a show a few years ago and was very impressed by the sensible spec, though I personally don't go for drops.

Also 9 speed.

In 2020 - well fancy that

I agree fully that for a tourer, that's an ideal set up. We have something very similar on the tandem.

But for a fast day bike, 50/34 and 11-28 11 speed is perhaps optimal. Maybe 11-32 depending on strength and hills.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

That resonates with me, I would rather reduce my cadence going downhill in a bigger gear than have to descend at 100rpm+, feels much more smooth and stable.

Unless you're on a fixed wheel, there's no need to descend at any RPM whatsoever. That's what freewheels were invented for!

 

[Twilkes]

Unless you're on a fixed wheel, there's no need to descend at any RPM whatsoever. That's what freewheels were invented for!

There's also no need to ride a bike whatsoever. You really seem to struggle to understand/tolerate that other people have different views/likes/dislikes to your own, and not just on this thread.

/out