gear numbers

fuzzyduck76

Hi folks, just canvassing opinion. Is it 'strange' to reffer to individual gear numbers, e.g. my bike has 20 gears and gears 11 and 19 make a clicking noise?

A work colleague (self confessed bike nut) looked at me as though I had just landed from outer space when I said something similar. Apparently anyone who knows anything about bikes would never specify 'gear numbers', and I should say something like '2nd gear on small ring/cog' or suchlike to avoid ridicule!?

I think he must be talking crap but thought I had better check! Thanks!

nicklouse

He is correct.

Anonymous

Bike gears, if you have multiple cogs front and rear just don't run linear and there's generally some overlap so doesn't make sense to number them 1 to 20 or whatever.

I just have a feel for what gear I'm in but couldn't tell you what number or cog or whatever. I'd just know I'd be in granny, middle or big if I had a 3x front (not that I do any more) and somewhere up or down the rear cog. Typically you stay for some time in the same ring at the front and have to change up or down at some point to improve things.

dhobiwallah

As above - with more than one ring how are you numbering?

What do you refer to as 6th gear? Is it granny ring and 6th cog on the rear? Because while that could make sense why would '10th, 11th & 12th' gears (middle ring and first 3 cogs on rear) be lower than 6th gear ???

So to actually specify gear order it would be something like:

Granny and 1st
Granny and 2nd
Granny and 3rd
Middle and 1st
Middle and 2nd
Granny and 4th
Middle and 3rd

etc etc etc
As to where you hop back and forth between front rings to '/go up a single gear' depends on the ratios, ie number of teeth on the front ring v number of teeth on the back. Rear cassettes are not all standard on the cogs they contain so to know what the problem was in '6th gear' one would have to perform some calculations to know what you were even referring to.

If you say 'I am getting a noise on the granny ring and smallest cog on the rear ' You can straight away determine what the issue is (and in that case it is because you are cross chaining - it is a combo you shouldn't use and don't need to - the gear ratio is replicated half way through the range on the middle ring)

fuzzyduck76

Thanks for the replies.

I have 2x front rings with 10 cogs on the rear, giving me 20 gears.

I would argue that its implicitly obvious (in the context of two front rings)that if I say gear 5 then I'm in referring to cog 5 on the back, granny ring on the front, likewise gear 15 must be big ring + cog 5.

I get it why some might preffer to explicitly describe the front ring + rear ring combo to derive a 'gear', I just don't see why it is some great faux-pas to talk about gear numbers!

nicklouse

fuzzyduck76 wrote:

Thanks for the replies.

I have 2x front rings with 10 cogs on the rear, giving me 20 gears.

I would argue that its implicitly obvious (in the context of two front rings)that if I say gear 5 then I'm in referring to cog 5 on the back, granny ring on the front, likewise gear 15 must be big ring + cog 5.

I get it why some might preffer to explicitly describe the front ring + rear ring combo to derive a 'gear', I just don't see why it is some great faux-pas to talk about gear numbers!

It is when no one else can see what you have.

Or you just get asked for more info.

A bike with 20 gears does not have to have the same sey up as yours,

There is also major confusion just with the cogs on the cassette. Is the big gear the large cog or the small cog? Likewise the smaller gear the big or small cog?

Anonymous

I have 1x10 on one bike, but 2x10 on another and the ratios are all different as one has a 34t the other 26t/39t. Same 12-36t on both at the rear though.

There's no comparison gear number between the two, and then I used to ride 3x9, then 2x9 and that doesn't match up either.

Again though, they're not linear. You don't go 1-10 in granny, then 1-10 middle, then 1-10 big. You go half way up in the granny, change to middle and go up and down a bit then maybe change to big and go up to top gear, then back down and jump up and down. On top a particular gear in the granny will be the same as another gear in the middle, etc. Cross over.

Just no logic to numbering them in sequence. Think of them instead as two sets of gears. 1 to 3 front, 1 to 7,8,9,10 or whatever rear. Still, they're not comparable as people have very different size cogs.

Too much complex thinking.

Just ride.

fuzzyduck76

Just ride.

Yeah that's the plan as soon as I've sorted the damn clicking noise on gears 11, 12 and 20.


Thanks guys.

dhobiwallah

And the whole point of the original question is shown.

Now (and the point is, only now) that you have further explained your setup we know that your problems are in the extremes (both directions on the rear cog) while in the big ring only on a 2x10 setup.

Not knowing anything about your bike it could be something as simple as your front dérailleur is a 9spd and isn't wide enough to allow for a 10 speed cassette and hence is rubbing at the extremes. Probably not the case but we now know what sort of thing to look for.

Gears 11 and 12 on my 3x8 bike would relate to a far straighter chainline so I would not be looking for entirely different issues. My point is The 'same' gear number on my bike is an entirely different setup to yours and so without the additional information of the setup it is meaningless. So why introduce the extra step to then decode in the first place?

And that is before the separate issue of numbering gears in the first place. I can't imagine you would dream of numbering your car gears 1,2,3 along the top of the gearstick then 4,5 along the bottom because of the layout and then say ' well as you accelerate you must use gears 1,4,2,5,3 in that order so the engine doesn't overrev and blow up'. That's just how I've chosen to number them for simplicity...

Sequential gear numbering is easiest to understand with the like of going through the rev range in a car - but it works the same with a bike (ratio/effort) but to go through the sequence you hop back and forth between front and back rings. In reality no-one ever does this and on a 20/27/30 speed bike would thing nothing of jumping from 6th to 9th gear as there is no need to hop back and forth through both dérailleurs to get the sequence in order and we can absorb the jumps as the gaps are far closer than your car.

So in summary:

1: You are numbering your gear sequence, well, out of gear sequence.

Which, if all bikes had standard gearing could at a push be considered useful - but they don't so:

2: You are inventing a numbering system specific to certain bikes with identical gearing only and not to others which is only confusing matters rather than simplifying which would be the only reason to overlook point 1 above!

fuzzyduck76

Thanks for the detailed reply! Yeah I'll just pre-qualify any reference to 'gear number' with "I'm running two front rings and ten rear cogs". I reckon this should safely remove any confusion.

Perhaps I'll be cast out as a pariah in cycling circles should I mention 'the gear number'. So be it. To my mind some people are being a bit too precious.

Anonymous

It's still confusing.

Just say you've got 2x10 and you're in big ring, largest cog. Simple.

Makes sense to most people even if they have a different set up. Some kind of rubbing chain issue for example could happen with a 1x10, 2x10, 3x10, 1x9, 2x9, 3x9, all in the largest rear cog, yet could be gear number 1, 11 or 10 if you were to count them sequentially (and as said we don't shift sequentially).

concorde

You can't really knock people for saying this mind and at first thinking it because at the end of the day when you buy a bike it says it has 24, 27 gears etc. When it doesn't really. So the only way you can find the said amount of gears is by using the OPers logic.

dhobiwallah

Well I think you have the logic behind people not using the numbering as you do even if you don't agree

I'm guessing you only have the one bike - or only use 2x10 setups at any rate because if you use more (or discuss more which is why the question was asked in the first place) it will make sense not to number them sequentially. I don't think it is people being precious I just think numbering them as you do isn't particularly helpful when diagnosing issues as the first thing you have to do is work out which cogs you are talking about anyway, but regardless....

As a separate exercise if you are new-ish to the world of mtb gearing it is useful to calculate the gears in each combo anyway. All you need is the number of teeth on each front ring and the number of teeth on each cog on the cassette. Either use an online calculator like sheldon browns listed in the earlier post, or just do 20 sums of front cog divided by rear cog and place the results in order.

If you were a roadie and were worried about cadences of 78rpm vs 82rpm you might juggle the gears to get exact ratios. In MTBing it is really only an interest/overview thing. I was amazed on my 3x9 setup how much overlap there was (I think my granny ring only gave me 3 lower gears than the middle as the middle ring and largest rear was lower than granny and 4th.) What the knowledge did was help me select 'better' gearing. I used to go most of the way through the rear on the granny before changing up on the front - crossing the chain and putting more stress on it, once I knew that it was pointless above '3rd' gear as you would call it I used the middle far more often with a straighter chainline and have never snapped a chain while my mate does it about every third ride!

Anyway - how are your 11th/12th/20th gears?

As we have established they are at the extremes you could do with looking at rubbing, probably on the front derailleur. Assuming your parts are compatible I would then look at the limit screws to ensure the mech is allowed to move to its extremes.

Also, although I can't see your setup, make sure you are not cross-chaining. On my 2x9 setup I have simply lost the big ring from what was a 3x9 setup - I don't know if your cogs are more centralised than mine. But as a rule you should avoid extreme gear selections from side to side; so on my 3x9 gears number 9 and 19 are definitely no-go, and possibly 8 and 20 as well.






(Which is the granny and 2 smallest cogs on the rear and the big and two largest on the rear - the selections that put the chain in the most crossed position. Can you see how 'your' numbering isn't hugely helpful here as it requires a bit of mental gymnastics to work out what is far more easily explained by the latter description) Depending on your rear mech cage you may well not be able to take up the excess chain the small/small combo gives you anyway. The 27 speed bike doesn't have 27 selectable gears - before you even consider near duplication in the middle of the range. Thats why going 1x9 or 1x10 isn't anywhere near as big a loss as people think!

Anyway, given you prob shouldn't be using gear 11 (as well as 10; and if you do the calcs you will see you have this approx gearing with another combo anyway) I would look at the limit screw on the front mech to stop the rub on your top gear.

Happy trails

fuzzyduck76

Concorde wrote:

You can't really knock people for saying this mind and at first thinking it because at the end of the day when you buy a bike it says it has 24, 27 gears etc. When it doesn't really. So the only way you can find the said amount of gears is by using the OPers logic.

Amen brother!

dhobiwallah, thanks for your thoughts, impressed by your insight. I do see where you are coming from and it makes sense. However like the previous poster said if bikes are advertised as having X number of gears you its not really on to bite someone's head off if they talk about a 'gear number'.

Ps - you were right the chain was rubbing against the derailuer, adjusted and is running sweet now.

Best wishes.

bails87

[Lightest bars are for a 22t granny ring, middle ones are for a 32t middle ring, darkest ones are for a 44t big ring.]
That's why it doesn't work.

"Gear 9" is harder than gears "10", "11", "12", "13" and "14"... and "19", "20" and "21". The fact that they're not sequential means it's not sensible to label them 1-20/27/30. Especially because the problem with chain rub is likely to be caused because you're cross chaining (big/big or small/small), which is specific to the setup, ie gear 17 on a 3x8 setup would give the same problem as gear 21 in a 3x10 or maybe gear 11 on a 2x10. The problem with all of those is big/big combo, not the specific gear number.