Thursday guy
Active Member
As a beginner, I'm genuinely baffled. I've done a few test rides with bikes that have over 16 gears (so they all had two gear shifters on each side of the handle) and then I tried this bike http://www.evanscycles.com/products/hoy/shizuoka-000-2015-hybrid-bike-ec059169#features which only has 8 gears with only one chain ring (so it only had one gear shifter for the rear sprockets). Apparently there are many other bikes with that feature as well.
I've found the 8 gear bike was far easier to shift up/down to match my speed and the road incline, it's almost the same as shifting gears 1-5 in a car, only with this bike it's 1-8. And with only one shifter, it was far simpler to operate. Whereas with a 21 gear bike for example, I would have to adjust both shifters, and there's the problem that if I start off on gear 1 on the chainrings shifter (left handlebar side) and progress along the gears (1-7) on the sprockets shifter (right handlebar side), after I've reached 7 on that, I would then need to move to gear 2 on the chainring shifter, but I would have to move the sprockets shifter all the way back to 1, otherwise there would be a big jump and the gear wouldn't match my speed. Is this not an issue for other people as well?
I can climb up steep hills and go really fast on the way down just as effectively as with the bikes which had 16, 21, 24 or 27 gears, so it seems to me that the cons outweigh the pros with bikes that have many gears - not that I see any pros. And from talking to the bike shop people, they mentioned that the bikes with many gears (with more than one chain ring) are more difficult for maintenance and are more prone to faults in its lifetime due simply to having more moving components - is there any truth to this? And also, because they have more than one chainring, isn't there the issue of bending the chain diagonally with certain gear combinations?
I've found the 8 gear bike was far easier to shift up/down to match my speed and the road incline, it's almost the same as shifting gears 1-5 in a car, only with this bike it's 1-8. And with only one shifter, it was far simpler to operate. Whereas with a 21 gear bike for example, I would have to adjust both shifters, and there's the problem that if I start off on gear 1 on the chainrings shifter (left handlebar side) and progress along the gears (1-7) on the sprockets shifter (right handlebar side), after I've reached 7 on that, I would then need to move to gear 2 on the chainring shifter, but I would have to move the sprockets shifter all the way back to 1, otherwise there would be a big jump and the gear wouldn't match my speed. Is this not an issue for other people as well?
I can climb up steep hills and go really fast on the way down just as effectively as with the bikes which had 16, 21, 24 or 27 gears, so it seems to me that the cons outweigh the pros with bikes that have many gears - not that I see any pros. And from talking to the bike shop people, they mentioned that the bikes with many gears (with more than one chain ring) are more difficult for maintenance and are more prone to faults in its lifetime due simply to having more moving components - is there any truth to this? And also, because they have more than one chainring, isn't there the issue of bending the chain diagonally with certain gear combinations?