What gear am I in?

Moderator

Nightturkey wrote:

Well, I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep over it, I was mostly just curious. Like the old saying goes, ...er, I forgot how the old saying goes. Oh well, I'll just find the gear I can pedal comfortably in and never mind what number it is.

That's the method I subscribe to! Numbers are over-rated, even for us geniuses.

Mark

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Bicycling is my drug of choice. Followed closely by beer.

Recumbent Guru

Dang, we need to start an RRSC glossary. We're obviously making great strides with advancing creativity in the lexicon of the English language.

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BluesCat -----> beer

2008 Sun EZ Sport CX - "Bluetiful", 2001 Giant Yukon SE - "The Roadley", 1986 Batavus Course - "DutchGrl"

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Actionbent Moderator

Merely our never-ending quest for clarity of expression

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"Taiwan Red" SWB USS HBB, "Lady Blue"E-Z SunRay

Senior Member

Always remember; eschew obfuscation!

CFRR Moderator

garrybuck wrote:

Always remember; eschew obfuscation!

God Bless You, oh you didn't sneeze. Let us not all start using big words. My pea brain is starting to over-flow .... and I am having trouble finding a dictionary. Sad

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Bill from Sebastian
Giant OCR2
Mongoose Switchback Cruzbike Conversion
"Pain is only temporary, quitting is forever." Lance Armstrong
www.slrsci.com/

Actionbent Moderator

Back in the early 1970s my Dad, an English teacher, had those very words, "Eschew Obfuscation", on a bumper sticker on our family car. Fully 90 percent of the people who bothered to comment on it thought it was something dirty. BTW, when I'm out on Taiwan Red and someone asks me "What the h--- kinda bike is that?" I nearly always end up having to define the word "recumbent" for them. Kinda sad.

_________________
Burn more carbohydrates, fewer hydrocarbons

"Taiwan Red" SWB USS HBB, "Lady Blue"E-Z SunRay

CFRR Moderator

Nightturkey wrote:

Back in the early 1970s my Dad, an English teacher, had those very words, "Eschew Obfuscation", on a bumper sticker on our family car. Fully 90 percent of the people who bothered to comment on it thought it was something dirty. BTW, when I'm out on Taiwan Red and someone asks me "What the h--- kinda bike is that?" I nearly always end up having to define the word "recumbent" for them. Kinda sad.

Ok, it is back to short, clear and concise words for me, not even a bit of double-minded speech thrown in for good luck. Very Happy

_________________
Bill from Sebastian
Giant OCR2
Mongoose Switchback Cruzbike Conversion
"Pain is only temporary, quitting is forever." Lance Armstrong
www.slrsci.com/

Moderator

garrybuck wrote:

The answer is, it depends.

Depending on the size of your chainrings and the cogs in your cassette, there can be any number shifting patterns to get through the gears, and there are likely redundant ratios. In other words, if you have 3 chainrings and 9 cogs, you may think you have 27 gears, but in fact you have less than that because of duplicate ratios. Also, you should avoid the two ratios that cause the chain to cross over at an extreme angle, i.e. big/big and small/small. So, in practical terms, a 27 speed transmission really has 27 minus 2 minus 'all the redundant ratios' speeds. How many is that? It depends.

Here's a calculator to help figure it out for your setup:
Sheldon Brown's Gear Calculator

To get through the gears in order, you may have to do double shifts, i.e. move both the front and rear shifters. This is an occult art.

I avoid the entire arcane mess by using a NuVinci infinitely variable transmission. Since there are an uncountably infinite number of 'gears' I don't bother with counting, I just ride the d*mn trike. Cuz, ya know, some things just ain't worth doing.

HUH?????

Senior Member

>HUH?????<

It's impossible for me (or anyone else) to answer the question, 'how do I shift gears in sequence?' It depends on the gearing for that particular bike, and every bike is different. To answer that question, you'd have to use a gear calculator for your bike.

I don't like dealing with unnecessary complexity, so I don't use a derailleur transmission, I use a NuVinci hub.

What's a NuVini hub? Go here: http://www.fallbrooktech.com/home.asp

Member

Back in the middle '80's and before all the cycling books were highly stuffy about gear inches etc. They only generally had 10 speeds, but they wrote at length about double shifts and proper shifting. At that time there was only friction shifting too.

Two points I subscribe to the double digit gear discription -- front ring--rear gear. Such as 2-5 or 3-8. The second point is that on LWB bents big- big or small - small or cross chaining is not really a big deal, since the chain is so long.