gears - why so many

knozy

do we need so many gears?
i have 27 gears and im sure you could get 24 gears with the same hi-low ratios, and smooth up or down change and end up with a stronger chain.
there would be better mud clearence and lighter cassette.
i cant seem to see the advantages of so many gears.
Will bikes now with the new sram xx have an even thinner chain.
anybody else seem to understand my point of vue or can anyone enlighten me why 9 cogs at the rear seems to be the norm.[/b]

k2rider

buy an 8 speed bike then and stop complaining ffs

knozy

k2rider wrote:

buy an 8 speed bike then and stop complaining ffs

good bikes just dont come with 8

supersonic

Sell the 9 speed stuff and get 8 speed stuff.

biff55

^^k2 rider
wheels , why so round ? :shock:
sorry , had few beers

knozy

like my x0. do they do 8

The Great Stonk

i have 1 gear.

seems pretty normal to me 8)

supersonic

Nope. So if you like it???... If it is working and you have had no problems I can't see a problem really.

SRAMS lightest rear cassette actually has 10 cogs.

PedroX64

Surely it depends on where you're riding... up Leith Hill, granny ring and big slow gears, riding down the trails middle ring and coming back on the roads large ring and smallest/fastest gear on the back. I use the full range on a normal ride.

Anonymous

theoretically, 8 speed is stronger i suppose but then, ive never broken a correctly set-up 9 speed drivetrain.

Hercule Q

i only have 9 gears

Buckled_Rims

sheepsteeth wrote:

theoretically, 8 speed is stronger i suppose but then, ive never broken a correctly set-up 9 speed drivetrain.

It depends on the quality of the chain and it's design. The most important factor is tensile strength. However, no matter how strong a chain is, if the connection pins were inserted wrong....SNAP!

Having said that, I've never snapped a 8 speed chain, but snapped a an expensive Shimano HG93 on a red run.

cat_with_no_tail

Hercule Q wrote:

i only have 9 gears

+1

Mens bikes have 9 gears, anything more or less is just ghey :roll:

Torres

Cat With No Tail wrote:

Hercule Q wrote:

i only have 9 gears

+1

Mens bikes have 9 gears, anything more or less is just ghey :roll:

Good job i'm building up a 1x9 then wouldn't want people talking.

_Ferret_

I thought the more gears you had the cooler you were. That's how it was when I was a kid.
"I've got a 5 gear bike"
"that's nothing, check out my 6 gear bike!"
ahhh happy days.

Hercule Q

Cat With No Tail wrote:

Hercule Q wrote:

i only have 9 gears

+1

Mens bikes have 9 gears, anything more or less is just ghey :roll:

he he he you spelt it ghey thats what us exmouthians do

John Stevenson

If you had an eight-speed cassette with the same 11 and 34 ends as a nine-speed, then you'd have a big jump somewhere in the range. many of us don't like the big change in pedalling speed that would require.

It was certainly a problem in the 7-speed days; Shimano's 13-30 cassette was gappy as hell.

If that doesn't bother you, then there's no reason why you couldn't use eight-speed stuff, except for the minor problem of finding good quality eight-speed parts.

passout

Big jumps in gears can slow you down too much if you are in a hurry e.g. xc racing. Generally I guess we could manage on less though.

adydow

Learn how to use your gears and stop complaining! :roll:

JamesBrckmn

We have so many gears, compared to a car, for example, because humans aren't as powerful as cars, so we have to be as efficient as possible, by having lots of different gear ratios.

captainfly

JamesBrckmn wrote:

We have so many gears, compared to a car, for example, because humans aren't as powerful as cars, so we have to be as efficient as possible, by having lots of different gear ratios.

It is a lot to do with powerbands, most HGV have at least 16 gears as they only have about 500rpm to play with most humans have less than 120rpm to play with. The gears just allow differences in terrain and allow better chainline.

Northwind

JamesBrckmn wrote:

We have so many gears, compared to a car, for example, because humans aren't as powerful as cars, so we have to be as efficient as possible, by having lots of different gear ratios.

But we have a lot of overlap. Which can be useful, sure, but of the 27 ratios in a standard bike, how many do you need? I just took off 9 of them and put them in a box... And of the 18 that remain there's how many unique (or significantly different) ratios?

Captain Turok

As said previously I believe its just about minimising the differences between the individual gears, so there isn't too much of a step up or down between them.

Chaz.Harding

Question:- Why do we have so many gears...?


Answer:- Because I'm addicted, man! I'll do anything to just get another gear on my bike - Shimano, SRAM, even Rohlhoff... I'll do ANYTHING man..! Please, c'mon, it'll be the last time, I promise! Just one more, I need it!!!









(Incase you didn't already guess, I was getting that we are addicted to MTB's )

Northwind

Captain Turok wrote:

As said previously I believe its just about minimising the differences between the individual gears, so there isn't too much of a step up or down between them.

But that's not really what happens, with a standard ratio triple and block you mainly get loads of duplication. XX has only 20 gears but covers most of the useful ratios.

supersonic

Duplication is not always a bad thing, and there are a few reasons why it happens.

Firstly if you run a 44tooth chainring with a 11-34 cassette, in order to not duplicate any of these gears you need a second chainring of 15 teeth. Deraillers cannot handle that jump, and even if it could the jump is massive - you would have to change right back through the cassette to get the next gear (of course you do this to an extent with any front meched set up if you want sequental gearing, but many want the larger jump. But not that big).

People do like a large range of gears ie the 44/11 and 22/34, so to not have the big step as above the middle ring is added. Also have better chainlines in the most common gears.

SRAMs 10 speed groupo has a 36 (optional 32) toothed rear cog with a dual chainset (though of course you could fit a triple) choice of 26 & 39, 28 & 42 or 30 & 45 tooth chainrings. I think with a 36, ten speed makes some sense. Note a max of 15t jump at the front. However using that double would not give me any of the range of gearing I want.

I am quite happy to run a triple for the extra weight of 50g or so for another chainring, especially as you have already added the weight of a front mech, cabling and shifter!

Shimano do have a cassette called the Capreo that has a 9t small cog. Not sure of the practicalities of it with MTBs (is on leisure bikes at the minute) and requires of course specific freehub and cassette. But if implemented on MTBs it would expand the range of a double front set up and allow a smaller front cog (ie 36) which would be useful with a double and bash and work well with an 11-34 set up with a 22t front cog.

Northwind

supersonic wrote:

SRAMs 10 speed groupo has a 36 (optional 32) toothed rear cog with a dual chainset (though of course you could fit a triple) choice of 26 & 39, 28 & 42 or 30 & 45 tooth chainrings. I think with a 36, ten speed makes some sense. Note a max of 15t jump at the front. However using that double would not give me any of the range of gearing I want.

36/26 gets you fairly close to a 34/22. Thing is, that doesn't have to be an exclusively 10-speed thing, in fact it doesn't seem like any of the main aspects of XX- the 50% step-up between rings, and the big rear cassette- should have to be 10-speed. You'd get wider gearing on the rear which isn't so good, but 22/32 with a 34T block on the back works pretty well for me so 24/36 with a 36-11 block could probably do the business, on an 18-speed.

(maybe I'm just getting carried away with my latest change, but so far the only place I've missed my big ring is on the road, and even then it's not that big a deal, even with the 32T front. So I'm looking at triples with a bit of a new eye, I didn't really expect this.

supersonic

It does depend what you want, ie a combo of range and ratio steps.

24/36 on the front would just be a bit too short for me as the 44 is over 20% higher.

Ideally I'd run 46/34/22 ;-)

Northwind

supersonic wrote:

24/36 on the front would just be a bit too short for me as the 44 is over 20% higher.Ideally I'd run 46/34/22 ;-)

How often do you actually use the highest gears, though? Not just the big ring but the highest few gears? (that's a genuine question I realised I basically never use them, the only time i ever used the big ring except for commuting I was still in ratios that are covered by the high end of the middle ring... But everyone's different.

captainfly

Northwind wrote:

supersonic wrote:

24/36 on the front would just be a bit too short for me as the 44 is over 20% higher.Ideally I'd run 46/34/22 ;-)

How often do you actually use the highest gears, though? Not just the big ring but the highest few gears? (that's a genuine question I realised I basically never use them, the only time i ever used the big ring except for commuting I was still in ratios that are covered by the high end of the middle ring... But everyone's different.

I was using top (big ring small cog) gear today on a road link, lovely fast sweeping dessent at over 30mph on tarmac with swampthings, in the dark :roll: I never seem to use my granny ring though :?:

bomberesque

if you want quality with less gears then who am I to wonder why? just hit up Jeff Jone's site. He'll do you a modified XTR set up with 5 gears (a cut down XTR cassette) on a singlespeed hub. He'll even do you a custom modded single ring XTR crank. Expect to pay huge bucks though....

actually, in many ways I sympathise with you. I went straight from 7 to 9 gears about 10 years ago and I think that shifting performance suffered, especially in the less than ideal conditions that constitute riding outside California (ie wet and mud). Rapid rise (for all it's phenomenal popularity :roll: ) helped address that but old XT 7 sp was the nuts.

I don't have a triple ring set up any more, 2x9 gives me what I need when I'm not riding singlespeed.