Gears, How Many is Too Many?

[indalo]

To get back on track, I have the now seemingly ubiquitous Nexus 8 on one bike and 27 gear Shimano on another. On the former, I probably use 5 through 8, 90% of the time occasionally bringing 4 into play on the steep bits. On rare occasions, I have utilised 2 & 3 on hill starts on really serious slopes.

27 gears is way too many for an ebike in my opinion as I manage pretty well on about half a dozen of them and I'm hardly an olympic athlete. When I ride unpowered, I may use a few more but that's it for me. I have sometimes wondered how many gears those lycra-clad road warriors actually use in their 50 mile Sunday appetisers. I know one who only uses one gear as he rides a 7 Kg single-speeder.....plus the weight of his handlebar-mounted sat-nav!

For leisure/utility cyclists, I think the Nexus/Alfine hubs are about as good as it gets but the 3-speed hub gear is probably sufficient for most eventualities.

Indalo

 

[laroche]

In a half-baked attempt to combine gears and politics, does anyone know why we put gears on the right, rather than the left?

 

[flecc]

In a half-baked attempt to combine gears and politics, does anyone know why we put gears on the right, rather than the left?

Since the safety bicycle was invented in Britain, I'd guess it was because it was the side away from the pavement, for safety reasons.

 

[Mussels]

Back on the topic of gears....

I find that range is more important than the number of gears. The 300% range I have now is just enough (when the motor is in use), this isn't possible with derailleurs unless you have a front mech and that's unusual on an electric bike.
As well as the gear range the steps shouldn't be too big between the gears, my Alfine 8 suffers this problem and would be better with them closer. Shimano try to minimise the problem by having increasing the steps as it goes up the gears and it works pretty well but is still a compromise.

In short reduced gears may be OK for some areas but I found a 7 speed freewheel wasn't good enough, the 8 speed hub is adequate but more gears and range is desirable with or without the motor running.

 

[laroche]

The 300% range .... isn't possible with derailleurs unless you have a front mech

Yes it is SRAM PG-1070 Cassette | SRAM

Even 327% SRAM XG-1080 Cassette | SRAM

Even 578%(!) http://www.sram.com/sram/urban/products/dual-drive-27

 

[Mussels]

Yes it is SRAM PG-1070 Cassette | SRAM

Even 327% SRAM XG-1080 Cassette | SRAM

Even 578%(!) Dual Drive 27 | SRAM

My mistake. I was thinking of 6 or 7 speeds as the rear hub motors only (AFAIK) take freewheels and not cassettes.

 

[Jimod]

Anyway - back to gears...
I've been finding I don't really need more than 3 - with the big front ring on; the smallest rear, an intermediate, and the largest rear do nicely. I'm not using the bike for mountain tracks as it was originally designed for, so those three gears are more than adequate, especially with the leccy hub.

Do you live in a hilly area? I guess the number of gears needed depends on where you live. Me, I need them all. In my area 9th would be too high for any of the hills, middle gear would be too high or too low depending on which hill and 1st would be too low for all the hills I've met except one. To be fair, I was tired when I got to the 1st gear hill.

 

[Scimitar]

Do you live in a hilly area? I guess the number of gears needed depends on where you live. Me, I need them all. In my area 9th would be too high for any of the hills, middle gear would be too high or too low depending on which hill and 1st would be too low for all the hills I've met except one. To be fair, I was tired when I got to the 1st gear hill.

Small slopes, but nothing much; the kind you notice without assistance, but even so aren't too bad. Of course, there are much bigger hills not so far away, but they can stay there My regular shopping/pottering routes don't involve much climbing at all. I've done with messing for gears for the moment, but might get back into it again, as I could do with an 11T smallest at the rear. Unfortunately, the largest ring I could fit at the front meant the front changer couldn't stay there and chain jump-offs became too frequent.

 

[Pedalo]

In case anyone cares, 6 widely spaced gears is plenty!

 

[Jimod]

In case anyone cares, 6 widely spaced gears is plenty!

That is typical of Thatcherite economics. 6 gears will ruin cycling for decades. 9 gears is the minimum for proper cycling growth.

 

[rsscott]

All non gear related posts have been moved to this thread:

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/charging-post/11661-not-gears-how-many-too-many-thread.html

Please keep the two separate!

 

[jerrysimon]

Russ sorry about us rebels and thanks for all your efforts to help make this forum a great/very addictive place to come

Not sure if this post should be in this thread or the other

Regards

Jerry

 

[laroche]

Here's a neat bit of software which calculates all sorts of gear-related things. It's free.

Cycling Software

The download link is 'Download GearCalc Pro 2.2.16' on the first line of text.

Cheers!