Advantages of 7 gears?

Stokie

I was out yesterday with my mate who's really into bikes and has been for years and i noticed on his bike as we went on our seperate ways that he only had 7 gears, are there any advantages in only having 7 gears over 21-28 gears? if 7 are enough is it easy enough to remove the not needed ones?

nicklouse

no advantage. a reduced range.

for some riding where a full range of gears is not needed then it can be advantageous as a device can be fitted to the front to keep the chain on.

can be easy or hard to sort depending on what cranks you have.

.blitz

Stokie wrote:

...are there any advantages in only having 7 gears over 21-28 gears?

There's a lot of overlap in the 21/24/28 speeds, it's best to think of them as 3 ranges of 7/8/9 gears.

For example, I only use the lowest two gears in the granny ring, 4 or 5 in the middle ring and maybe one or two in the big ring. A cassette with 8/9 speeds on its own would be OK for me but there could be problems with chainline.

Stokie

Cheers nicklouse,

I dont really use all the gears i have only seem to use them when im getting up some speed and blasting down a bank, i could easily become bone and just roll down the banks. So in your opinion would you keep the full range of gears or loose them and stick to just 7 :?:

nicklouse

what i sugest is put the chain on the middle ring and see how it goes. do you have a low enough gear for climbing. do you have a high enough gear for going fast.

Stokie

Thanks for the help guys i will give it a try when im out on it tomorrow