Metrickery

[cardiac case]

Hi All,

I've just been reading a thread in the technical section about gearing and can't help wondering why talk
is in gear inches, and not in metric. What is it that prevents Brits from admitting that the metric system
is easier? (Ducks for cover) Then there's those that mix the two. I did 12-1/2 mph for 10k for example.
My tyres are 1-1/8" x 700 etc.

I left school in '71 when I thought we went decimal and haven't seen a £4/19/11 price tag for ages.
Since most of us drive cars, when did we last buy a gallon of fuel, but we still refer to mpg.

Anyway, roads are nearly dry, suns poking though, I'm off for a ride.

ATB
Paul G

 

[the_mikey]

Not once did a school teacher ever tell me or my class about yards, feet or inches, they had a metre stick, which had the metre marked in millimetres and centimetres. Yet feet, inches and yards persist. I reckon another 35 years until most of the people in the House of Lords will be metric minded.

 

[cardiac case]

Not once did a school teacher ever tell me or my class about yards, feet or inches, they had a metre stick, which had the metre marked in millimetres and centimetres. Yet feet, inches and yards persist. I reckon another 35 years until most of the people in the House of Lords will be metric minded.

Ah!
Then hello "Metric_Mikey"

 

[Dogtrousers]

I'm an SI-units-phile but I use gear inches. The strange thing is that the metric "equivalent" of gear inches - development - measures something different altogether. One measures how big an equivalent wheel is, the other measures how far you go with each pedal cycle.

More interesting insights from the late great Sheldon:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gain.html

 

[Apollonius]

I checked in to train as a teacher in 1968 and one of the first things we were told was that the UK had officially gone metric and we were to use the metric system at all times in the classroom. Seemed fair enough to me, so I went with it. Nearly 50 years later, and I am still considered odd for using the metric system by most people.

As people above have pointed out, the gear inches thing still works and I have yet to discover a reasonable SI alternative. How on earth did the medical world manage without milligrams? People still use the acre, but I have yet to meet anyone who knows how big they are. It seems to be a unit of guessing.

As a government minister said a while ago, "We are inching our way towards metrication."

 

[Flying Dodo]

At the ripe old age of 51, I'm more metricated than my children who until I told them to stop switching the scales from kg, persisted in using stones and pounds in referring to their weight, and they both seem to have been taught more imperial measurements than metric in schools than I was.

 

[Dirk]

I still think in feet and inches, Fahrenheit, acres, gallons and pounds, shillings and pence!
I automatically convert 'new pence' into shillings and pence without thinking. Ten Bob for a packet of crisps? Who'd have thought it?!
However, I do generally use metric for 'engineering'.

 

[raleighnut]

America is still mainly Imperial measurements, but they mainly quote a persons weight in pounds and their mile is shorter than the British mile and I'm pretty sure that their gallon is a bit less and as for engine capacity in cubic inches which I'm pretty sure never was used in Britain (We've always quoted in cc or litres)
its all rather confusing really to quote Spike Milligan.
I remember in my local when they said beer would soon be sold in half litres I commented that we had been served half litres for years and was ridiculed so next time I went in I had a 500ml bottle of beer with me, made sure I had an audience at the bar and asked for a pint glass into which I poured the bottle. Lo and behold a pint with a head. It led to some muttering and people asking the landlord to "Top that pint up" for quite a while.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Australia adopted the metric system shortly before I came on the scene (yeah, I know, giving away my age there), so I grew up with metric. However, I have been around long enough to still find feet and inches more meaningful as a measure of a person's height. I still think of my height as 6'3" instead of 1.9m.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I think "gear inches" is more an esoteric cycling measurement than an actual imperial measurement per se. It's not as if it's taught in the schools. There's little impetus to learn that a 70 inch gear is actually a développement of 5.6 metres (or whatever it is).

It's such an arcane measure that it can be considered almost unitless. No one actually pictures a penny farthing when they think about it - it's just a number.

Incidentally, this leads me on to a pet beef of mine about the cycle industry - why don't they quote the high and low gear ratios for a bike. We often have people on here who've bought a bike with gears that are too "racy" and are struggling on hills. I put this down to there not being consistent publication of gear ranges.

 

[cardiac case]

Surly it becomes gear metres?

A 70 inch gear becomes a 1.78m

 

[Dogtrousers]

Surly it becomes gear metres?

A 70 inch gear becomes a 1.78m

Yes but no but ...
... theoretically yes. But no one in the world uses "gear metres". On the continong they use développement which is a different way of measuring the same thing. Effectively they multiply "gear metres" by pi. So the metric equivalent isn't quite equivalent. Gear inches is the diameter of a notional wheel, développement is related to the circumference of a real wheel

And Sheldon has an interesting dimensionless variant.

 

[Kestevan]

Look it's easy really......

Length:
Anything smaller than an inch is measured in mm. Then switch to feet until you get to a meter, Use meters till you get to about 1/2 mile then switch back to Imperial. Speed in Mph.

Mass:
Grams till you get to a bag of sugar then Lb.
Lb/Stones for weighing yourself.
Kilos for anything heavier till about a ton.

Volume.
Milk & beer in pints. Everything else in SI units (cept mpg figures obviously).

All designed to be as confusing to Johnny-Foreigner as possible (best thing is it confuses both the continentals and the yanks).

 

[Dirk]

Bring back bushels, pecks, rods, poles and perches.
Tanners, bobs, florins and guineas would be nice as well.
What heritage we have lost over the years!

 

[DaveReading]

America is still mainly Imperial measurements, but they mainly quote a persons weight in pounds and their mile is shorter than the British mile and I'm pretty sure that their gallon is a bit less

The US gallon is certainly less than the Imperial one, but their mile being shorter than ours is news to me.