[QUOTE=jbchybridrider;12451206]
Originally Posted by
Sixty Fiver
Is the bike in the pic the ron cooper repainted or did you swap some components over to another frame.
The decoupaged bike is a 1973 Raleigh Gran Sport which used to be my road bike until the Cooper came along... as the paint was pretty wretched I turned it into an art project but she isn't a garage queen. At a spec over 20 pounds she's a very fast and very comfortable bike. I have this smaller frame set up pretty aggressively while the Cooper is a long ride machine.
On gear inches...
The practical gear range on a bike ranges from the low you find on touring and mountain bikes which is about 16 gear inches and is good for climbing straight up or doing long climbs with full touring gear but is pretty useless on flat ground.
At the upper end racing bikes can get up to almost 130 gear inches which is too high a gear for solo riding and is only useful on high speed descents.
Normal people can usually ride quite comfortably in a 40-90 gear inch range and gearings higher or lower than that are utilized for special purposes as I mentioned above.
Hybrids usually come with a 28/38/48 and a cassette with a 12 -28 or perhaps wider spaced and lower geared 12-34 gearing which gives a low gear of 22-27 gear inches and a high of 109 gear inches and this is a nice set up for the many people who are getting back on a bike and need that lower gearing until they get in shape.
For most it is ideal if you can spin at 80-90 rpm and this keeps you in your aerobic range and keeps you out of the anaerobic range which will fatigue you fairly quickly.
Just set up my Moulden with a new triple and it has a 22 tooth low which gives me that wall climbing 16 gear inches and a high of 103 and as I like to spin at higher than average rpms it makes it fairly easy to bring the bike up to 50 kmh at 100 rpm and at 120 rpm (sprinting / descending pace) the bike will do 60kmh.
My vintage Cooper runs a 40-108 gear inch range which is a little lower and wider than a modern road bike.