Gear cable broke!

[Ashtrayhead]

On the way home this morning I was having trouble changing up and down the gears until finally the cable came out of the housing on the lever! I had to do 5 miles in the smallest sprocket which is where the chain ended up after all the fiddling! Fortunately I've got a triple so was able to use the middle and smallest rings!

One plus side is that I now see the attraction of fixies, I was pleasantly surprised at how I could get up the hills without gears but with an extra bit of effort. I imagine that the gear ratio is nothing like on a fixie, but it's given me food for thought!

 

[Trillian]

you don't have to go the whole hog of a fixie,

my mountain bike is now two years old, i bought (well, got bought for christmas) disk brakes with the idea of saving up and buying gears at a later date

i've yet to buy the gears
the bike has got me up some of the tougher routes in the lakes, a years worth of commuting to and from uni and a fair few long distance rides before i got my roadie working (a 6 speed!)

the roadie, before i fixed the gears, only worked in about three of the gears, one was first, the others were 4th and 5th, it now has six, and i use about half of them!


on the other hand, my partner has learnt to use the full set (nearly) of gears on her mtb and quite happy about it as she's able to sustain my touring pace for short periods

with regard to ratios, stick what you want on there and have fun, isn't that why we ride bikes?

well, i do it to be excentric but hey

 

[hackbike 6]

eccentric.

I like fixies as there is less fiddling about with gear ratios that you don't need.

I mean why have I got 27 gears?

 

[san]

I agree hackbike.I just started commuting and i bought a Marin Novato 08. Awesome bike and serving me very well. but I only use about 4 of the 24 gears. I am already toying with the idea of getting something with less gears, but I'll see how it does in winter.

 

[domtyler]

eccentric.

I like fixies as there is less fiddling about with gear ratios that you don't need.

I mean why have I got 27 gears?

For noobies like yourself Hackers surely having a load of gears to play with is all part of the fun?

 

[biking_fox]

You have lots of gears to manage the shift from high ratios to low ratios. Ideally one keeps the legs spinning at a more or less constant rate, and as the terrain alters slightly you go up or down a gear at a time to keep the revs constant. Lots of gears with a small gap between them help cover a wider range of hill without forcing a too dramatic change of tempo.

There is also a mechanical issue in that a deraileur can't handle to big a jump at once, so if you want to go from high to low you need to have quite a few gears in the middle.

 

[Keith Oates]

I don't have any big hills on my commute but I don't change gears for the round trip and find that I can keep up a good (for me) average speed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!