Would 30 gears be a mistake?

[Randochap]

I should have noted Mac that I use triples on those, but whatever turns your crank. Sounds decent to me.

 

[MacB]

Gras, I get it now, that makes sense, I think pedalling/cycling style must influence. I seem to tend to alter my tempo rather than change gear.

Ray, yeah, initially I was looking at triples but I always seemed to end up with a ring I'd get little or no use from, generally the outer. I was originally looking at single ring setups all round but either the steps got too big or the range too small. So I split the difference and decided more options at the bottom of the range would be better, hence an inner ring.

 

[TheDoctor]

A setup I had recently was a 38 front, and 7 speed 32/26/21/18/16/14/12. Works nicely unless it was super-hilly, which North Herts isn't especially.
Now got a compact (34-50) on the same cassette, and I don't like it at all. I really must get round to swapping back...

 

[GrasB]

Gras, I get it now, that makes sense, I think pedalling/cycling style must influence. I seem to tend to alter my tempo rather than change gear.

I usually maintain 95-100ppm when riding, but my comfortable cruising cadence is 80-120. If you put that into sprocket teeth terms going from 120 & 80 to ~100 is approximately 2 teeth. If I always find I'm falling bellow 90 but not to 80ppm I'll want to drop 'half' a gear, same with going over 110ppm a lot, I want 'half a gear' & this is when I find close ratio blocks come into their own.

If you look at my usual ~77" that puts me in the 21-25mph range for 'ideal' rolling variation with 18.5-27.5mph if going to the outside of my cruising cadence tolerance. That's a big variation in road speed.

 

[womblechops]

I ride a VSF! Albeit with an 8 speed Shimano hub gear. I would second the comment above regarding the Rohloff as the solution to everything as I wish I had gone for it, but otherwise I can only recommend the VSF generally as a very comfortable and fast bike. Mine does over 100 commuting miles a week and I love it.

 

[MacB]

A setup I had recently was a 38 front, and 7 speed 32/26/21/18/16/14/12. Works nicely unless it was super-hilly, which North Herts isn't especially.
Now got a compact (34-50) on the same cassette, and I don't like it at all. I really must get round to swapping back...

Hmmm, like the way that stacks up, closer spacing on the more frequently used range and broader down at the bottom. For my setup that gives 31, 39, 48, 56, 63, 72 and 84 inches. On my triple I spend nearly all my time in the middle ring and in the 7 gears from 48 to 85 inches, focus on the 58 to 78 inch range. I've only once gone above this and about 10 times gone to the inner ring using the 3 gears from 30 to 40 inches.

I still hanker after a Rohloff as well but just can't get happy with the gear progression. By using equally spaced, 13.6%, increases you end up with close bunching at the bottom and big gaps at the top. If you want the better gaps in your main riding range you end up with some ridiculously large gears. If the progression was altered to 20% increments for gears 2-4 and then just 10% increases for the rest, you could have a superb spread of 14 gears from 22 to 100 inches. Most importantly just 5-6 inch gaps from 40 to 82 inches. In actual fact the gear spacing looks better for the SRAM 7 and 9 speeds, the Sturmey Archer 8 and the Shimano 7 and 8. Just that the Rohloff wipes the floor with them in almost every other area.

 

[jimboalee]

A real bike manufacturer works on the premise of a 75kg rider and 170mm cranks.
If he stands up and puts all his weight on the pedal, he’ll produce 675 watts at 50 rpm.
Most riders will want to remain seated, so halve this power figure but retain the 50 rpm cadence.

Now you go work out the gearing required to get a 15 kg bike ( 13.5 + luggage ) up a road with ONE ordnance survey chevron on it. ( 19.9 % )?

It’s the gear that allows 6 kmh at 50 rpm ,,,, 26 ring to 28 sprocket,,,, 25”.

 

[Brock]

Are those spurious maths what you use to judge quality of bike manufacturer?

 

[jimboalee]

Are those spurious maths what you use to judge quality of bike manufacturer?

A bike maker that labels a bike 'Randonneur' and puts a rack on it to give the customer the impression it's a TOURING bike; and then only gives you a 32" gear to play with is one which I leave well alone.

The Dawes Horizon has a 28 x 32 ( 23" ) ! That will get a 14kg bike up a 20%.

Don't worry about the maths. Decent bike makers like Dawes have already done it.

 

[Brock]

The rack is extremely light, not designed for a full touring load. It's not designed as a touring bike.. it's designed as a randonneur. I believe randonees are some kind of long distance race, where you would carry little more than wet weather gear, basic tool kit, spare tubes etc? The gearing is presumably designed in accordance with the target rider, who is probably more of an athlete than me, but hey, if I fancy riding a bike faster than I am I doubt I'll be that different from a lot on this forum.
Thankfully it's not very hilly round here, so I won't need low gears. The old claud butler dalesman I ride now has a huge range, the lower two thirds I rarely use.

I'm not worried about your maths, because it strikes me as wildly presumptuous and vague.

 

[jimboalee]

Maybe I'm making an incorrect assumption thinking that the German maker had called their bike 'Randonneur' knowing what a Raleigh Randonneur was.

Perhaps the German company has never heared of the Raleigh Randonneur, much like they don't know about bicycle gearing.

 

[Brock]

jimbo, nobody thinks it's a tourer, it's not marketed as a tourer, it's not geared as a tourer, and maybe they haven't heard of a Raleigh Randonneur.. They probably haven't heard of a raleigh grifter either. So what?

 

[GrasB]

I'd assume that a firm calling a bike a "Randonneur" would look at what a randonnée event is and make a bike according to that. From my understanding, they are a non-competative endurance ride where the persons entering are expected to be fairly sell sufficient on a long/multi-day ride. Considering the variations of lengths you may well expect to have slightly heaver duty race bikes through to all out touring bikes.

 

[John the Monkey]

Still a nice bike though, don't you think?

 

[Brock]

Still a nice bike though, don't you think?

well I thought it was nice.. But jimbo has pointed out that they aren't a 'real' bike manufacturer so now I'm not so sure.