Gears

goss

Hi all can anyone tell me why all bikes (at least the ones ive seen ) have the gears on the right hand side of the bike ???? Thanks in advance.

cooldad

If they were on the left the chain would fall off.

FSR_XC

There's no mech hanger on the left side of the frame . . . . :shock:

aegrey

No idea why bikes don't have a mirror equivalent, but can I ask why would this make a difference to you?

goss

Thanks for those excellent answers . It doesnt make any difference to me aegrey i was just curious, is it something to do with design ??? there must be some reason ??

Anonymous

cooldad wrote:

If they were on the left the chain would fall off.

Awesome, absolutely awesome
I doth (doff? whatever) my cap to thee

Rich9

seriously.. I'd hazard a guess at:
early cranks/bottom brackets being threaded with a right hand thread on both sides, therefore if it was on the left hand side the crank would unwind itself??
its a feasible answer... :?:

Anonymous

why would having the chainrings on the other side make the crank any more likely to unwind itself than having it on the right?

sm1thson

if they did the option of either side then production costs would be more expensive, so its standard. Incidently you can get left hand drive stuff for bmx's (to keep the chain etc out of the way if you grind mostly on the right)

Rich9

yeehaamcgee wrote:

why would having the chainrings on the other side make the crank any more likely to unwind itself than having it on the right?

on reflection..... Dunno really :oops: Doh :roll:

RevellRider

yeehaamcgee wrote:

why would having the chainrings on the other side make the crank any more likely to unwind itself than having it on the right?

Probably not the cranks but the fixed gear cog. The first safety bicycles were right hand drive due to the right hand thread being more common. If the ran it on the left hand side they'd have to run a left hand thread or it would just undo it's self under load. They probably never changed it.

Anonymous

Aaaaah. That makes sense, yeah.

Rich9

thats what i meant......

Fully-sprung

But they could make them left hand drive if they wanted to, but what would be the point?
What I'd like to see is a 2 wheel drive bike, that would be interesting.

pastey_boy

http://www.christinibicycles.com/bikes.php

Anonymous

Fully-sprung wrote:

But they could make them left hand drive if they wanted to, but what would be the point?
What I'd like to see is a 2 wheel drive bike, that would be interesting.

It's been done, several times, in several ways.

Deputy Dawg

I rode a left hand drive bike once. It went backwards & was almost as uncontrollable as the one with reversed steering

leonr

I would go with the threading idea, it sounds logical!