Mountain Biking - Very light bike? High Gears?

Can someone name a bike with those qualifications? thanks.

There are many light MTB frames out there. Try looking at carbon fibre or titanium hardtails such as the Trek Elite 9.8, Aegis ProAxe and Litespeed Tanasi. When you say high gears, I'm assuming you mean tall gears for more speed? Many bikes come with 22/32/44 chainrings and either an 11-34 or 12-34 cassette. I don't know of any cassettes that will go taller than 11T but you can try changing out the front chainrings to larger road chainrings assuming you have enough derailleur capacity (switch to a road derailleur? - might not be compatible with MTB shifters though). Otherwise I think the largest chainring you can run up front with most MTB derailleurs is a 48T.

Your bike shop should be able to swap out the chainrings/chainset to get you higher gears. Specialities-TA make quality chainrings for MTB chainsets in larger sizes.
You can run MTBs on single or double chainsets if you dont need a granny gear, and for flatland trail riders, singlespeed or fixed gear makes a lot of sense.

go for singlespeed!!! its the best thing since sliced bread. i just had a trials crank put on my bike and left the rear cassette as it was. the trials crank is smaller than a granny ring but i can still get a fair amount of speed from it. so i think you could do wonders with a large chainring in thw front. plus it eliminates the need of a front derraileur. so that is one thing less to go wrong. and makes the bike very slightly lighter because no fornt derraileur and no front shifter. :)

I'm running a higher gear on my bike. I've got a 46-36-24 set of chainrings. All Race Face rings, so they are available.

The only issue is trying to keep a consistent spread on your rings. IOW, don't run some funky combo like a 48-32-20. It'll be difficult to adjust your front derailleur with a spread like that. Most new bikes are either 44-34-22 or 42-32-22, so keep them close to that.

My 46-24 spread with an XTR front derailleur still produces some chain rubbing on the bottom of the derailleur cage in a non-used small-small cross chaining situation, but since I don't cross chain it's not an issue!

L8R

Thanks for your help all, but whats the "44-34-22" mean? and whats a derailleur? and by high speeds I meant ones that are easy to pedal, to go up steep hills with some ease.

Easy gears are "low" gears.

For a low gear, pick a bike with a Shimano 9-speed drivetrain and ask the shop to equip it with a Megarange 11-to-34-tooth rear gear cluster if it doesn't come with one already. Most front cranks come with a 22-tooth small gear.

When the chain is on the biggest rear gear and the smallest front gear, you're in your lowest, easiest-climbing gear. In this case, it would be 22/34 = 0.647 ratio, so each turn of the pedals results in about 2/3 of a revolution of the wheels.

If you have special needs for an even-lower gear, you could swap a 20-tooth front sprocket to get another 9% lower. I could see this if you were pulling a heavily-loaded trailer up a very steep climb, but be aware that if you turn the pedals at 80rpm in this gear, you're only going 3.7 miles per hour.

Originally posted by shaun16
go for singlespeed!!! its the best thing since sliced bread. i just had a trials crank put on my bike and left the rear cassette as it was. the trials crank is smaller than a granny ring but i can still get a fair amount of speed from it. so i think you could do wonders with a large chainring in thw front. plus it eliminates the need of a front derraileur. so that is one thing less to go wrong. and makes the bike very slightly lighter because no fornt derraileur and no front shifter. :)


Your suggestion makes no sense whatsoever. He is asking about broad gear selection and you suggest singlespeed? Negative.

Troie,

some people will always suggest ss when ever anyone asks about gearing, even if the option isn't even available. I tend to just ignore them as they pop their heads in every so often.

Your suggestion makes no sense whatsoever. He is asking about broad gear selection and you suggest singlespeed? Negative.


sorry. i missunderstood the thread:(

Singlespeed fits half the equation light but not the rest.. As for the 22-32-44 that just means the number of teeth on the front chain rings. For example the 22 is the smallest chainring and 32 middle and 44 number of teeth on the large chainring.

Er... so he wants easier to pedal gears, right? A 32 tooth cassette is almost TOO easy for me to pedal. I rarely ever use the largest cog, because when climbing it tends to lift the front wheel. But I've got pretty strong legs. This massive cassette deal is new to me. I remember running 8 speed cassettes with much higher low gears, and I actually liked them much better. My other XC bike had the perfect gear ratios on it :(