So tell me Randochap, when an unsuspecting fool gets talked into doing a 100 mile charity ride, (or even a 14 day expedition from Land's End to John O'Groats) and doesn't even own a bike, who is going to help him select the bike and the gearing he needs to 'make a nice trip' of it?
The unsuspecting fool hasn't a clue.
His LBS man will probably be able to point him in the right direction AFTER some lengthy questioning about the guy's abilities AND the terain the route takes.
How does the LBS man formulate a gearing set-up for the unsuspecting fool's new bike?
Any thoughts here?
In 1995, two lads from work and I did the '14 day expedition from Land's End to John O'Groats' for charity. One of the lads wasn't a cyclist and trained for six months on a heavy lump of iron while I rebuilt a second-hand Cro-mo 'Racer' for him to use on the 'nice trip'.
Did we have a 'nice trip'? Of course we did.
I'm not going to tell YOU what gearing I put on that bike,,,,
Oh, go on then....
I fitted a 40/28 Stronglight chainset to a 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 24 & 34 Megarange 7 block.
Most of the riding he did on the 40 x 15 at 15 - 16 mph.
He had no problems on the hills, even the 15% climbs in Devon - with 'minimal' training.
PS. I've had to dig back through some old 3.5" floppies to find the calc sheet for this bike.