Why so many gears?.....

[SkipdiverJohn]

Another factor is the type of bike being ridden - particularly whether flat bar or drop bar. All my currently-owned bikes have flat bars, which means that realistically my top road speed is never going to exceed about 20 mph, as the aerodynamics would sap too much power to go much faster. Therefore there is no benefit to me in having a really big front ring and a really small top gear cog on the back. My top gears are 89" on my MTBs, 92" on my old SA 3-speed, and 93" on my 2 Raleigh hybrids. That's high enough for me. Even when I was younger and fitter than I am now, I wouldn't have wanted a bigger gear than the High gear on my SA hub.

 

[steveindenmark]

Mike. You now have 4 pages of answers with regards to your original question. Its a bike. Its supposed to be a simple form of transport. When it comes to riding it, what suits me, may not suit you. Get on it and ride it. play with the gears and find what suits you. After a while, as you get used to them and get fitter. What suits you now may not suit you later. Only by riding it will you know what gears you need to use when.

 

[ColinJ]

It's not the gear inches, it's what you do with it.

And where you try to do it ...

Local metric century elevation profile:

 

[Lozz360]

@Marazzi Mick
If you want to measure your cadence, ...Count one knee reaching apex for 19 seconds - on your stopwatch function on your Casio watch or whatever - and multiply by pi.

Why not just count the revs for 30 seconds then double it?

 

[DCBassman]

On all of the three multi-gear bikes I've owned, I use the middle ring mainly, across the whole cluster, then the small ring in the lower half of the cassette. Big ring strictly for downhill.
Being old and unfit, I want breadth of gearing, and when I've completed my mods, top will be 52-11t, bottom will be 30-34t. That should keep me from getting off on the hills.

 

[Tim Hall]

hearing the hum of the tyres on tarmac was very satisfying.

This is the most important bit.

 

[Marazzi Mick]

This is the most important bit.

 

[Brandane]

Count one knee reaching apex for 19 seconds - on your stopwatch function on your Casio watch or whatever - and multiply by pi.

Why not just count the revs for 30 seconds then double it?

I was wondering this too @Lozz360 . Especially since multiplying by pi would give a false reading as revs after 19 seconds would have to be multiplied by 3.1578947 to give the correct answer . You could always wait an extra second and treble it....

 

[Racing roadkill]

I disagree that 90 is the scientifically proven most efficient cadence for every single rider. From personal experience I find 83 rpm is where I am naturally most efficient. I believe everyone has their own natural ideal cadence.

With respect to having 22 gears, I think it’s not the best way to think about it. I look at it as having a number of gears for the inner chainring and a number of gears for the outer chainring, to allow them to work efficiently. The number of gears depending on the rider as to how far they like to cross over, which can vary depending on the ride.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989856/

 

[Tim Hall]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989856/

A quick read of the summary doesn't seem to support your assertion that 90rpm is the optimum cadence for every single rider.

Optimal cadences are yielded for two of the four riders in the study (83 and 70 rpm, respectively).

I find it hard to believe that there's One True Cadence for every rider anyway, given that we're not identical to each other. I'm willing to be corrected though.

 

[Racing roadkill]

A quick read of the summary doesn't seem to support your assertion that 90rpm is the optimum cadence for every single rider.


I find it hard to believe that there's One True Cadence for every rider anyway, given that we're not identical to each other. I'm willing to be corrected though.

https://www.torqfitness.co.uk/news/optimal-pedal-cadence

 

[Tim Hall]

https://www.torqfitness.co.uk/news/optimal-pedal-cadence

So a different article to the one that you first linked to suggests 90 rpm is "about right", rather than

proven that it’s bio mechanically most efficient to aim at a torque output at 90 rpm.

 

[Racing roadkill]

So a different article to the one that you first linked to suggests 90 rpm is "about right", rather than

http://myworldfromabicycle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/ideal-cadence-for-competitive-bicycling.html?m=1

 

[Tim Hall]

It's a bit like asking Goldilocks what is the one universal optimum porridge temperature for bears.

Temperature for beers you say? First there's the yellow/brown question to be taken into account.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Temperature for beers you say? First there's the yellow/brown question to be taken into account.

No, it's not the colour that matters - what matters is if it's fizzy gassy stuff or proper stuff. Fizzy stuff best kept cold so you can't actually taste it, proper stuff around 12 deg C. Now, back to gearing....