mrblue

I've been riding fixed gear for a long time and decided I wanted a "geared" road bike. Why? Just for fun, but mostly to learn how to adjust/maintain derailleurs. So I found a used "entry-level" bike on craigslist. It has an 8 gear cassette and three chain rings. As we all know that equates to 24 speeds. I started commuting to work with it and found I use, at the most, 2-3 of those speeds. I would wager most people (commuters) actually/regularly use no more than, I dunno, say, 5. So my question is: Do people really use/need all 24 speeds? What about pro cyclists? Do they use all 24 speeds?

Thanks.

LesterOfPuppets

I have 27 on a couple of my bikes. I don't need them all til I head for the hills, however.

If I was still doing a couple of my hillier commutes I'd use all of a 3x for sure.

I thought this was gonna be about 2x12. So disappointed.

zymphad

me too!!!

joejack951

My commuter has 27 speeds. On a typical ride, I'd use about 10. Depending on the wind, I could use up to 15. My road bike has 30 speeds and I've used 28 of them (only ever avoiding the most severely cross-chained gear combos).

It all depends on your terrain, of course. On flat ground, I could get by with 1-3 speeds. The hillier it gets, the greater range I want and I like my gears closely spaced, hence 27-30 speeds.

Most pros run double cranks so will only have 22 gear options max ( 2 x 11). I'm guessing they used most of them, too, when riding in the mountains at least. And most (all?) leave on the inner ring even though I doubt they ever shift to it on a flat stage.

hueyhoolihan

someone coming from using only 1, shouldn't be surprised that 24 seems excessive.

Leinster

Sounds like you have a pretty flat commute. If you've survived it on a fixie so far, so why change?

I have a single-speed for running errands around town, but whenever I venture off the valley floor (ie, pretty much every time I'm going for an actual ride) and start going up and down 7+% grades, I would tend to use most of the range of my 2x10 setup.

I also take my single speed out when going for a ride with my wife; because the minor elevation changes and small bridges we cross over on our rides together don't bother me, but she ends up using most of the range of her 20 gears.

PaulRivers

Lol, you clearly don't live where there's hills. I've used both the lowest gear (going up the hill) and the top gear (going down the hill). I don't use them very often, true, but I have had the need to use them.

MRT2

There is significant overlap and you shouldn't cross chain, so practically speaking, your typical 3 x 8 speed has anywhere from 14 to 16 useful gears. The triple offers a wide range of gears, some of which you might not use on every ride, but might just save your legs and behind on hills, or in the wind. I use a 3 x 9 speed and while I used 5 or 6 gears on the middle chainring most of the time, there are hills where I use 3 or 4 gears on the small chainring. On hills, I will often start on a gear on the small chainring that overlaps with a gear on the middle chainring. That way, if the hill gets steeper, I have 3 or 4 gears left on my cassette. Don't use the big chainring all that much, but it is useful on long flats with a tailwind or on downhills, particularly on group rides where I find myself close to spinning out on the middle chainring.

zymphad

I cross chain all the time and love it!

JerrySTL

My road bike has 30 speeds and my touring bike 'only' has 27. My next road bike will probably have a compact double but with a wide 10 or 11-speed cassette.

It's pretty flat where I live, but I occasionally ride where the hills hit 15% grade. I use the 'granny gear' up those.

stephtu

- The ranges on the chainrings overlap to some extent so there are a bunch of combinations that give you approximately the same gear, duplicates. So there aren't really 24 different gear ratios.

- If you ride some place fairly hilly you will use a lot more/all of the gear range than if you live somewhere flat. Also riding a fixed gear, you are used to varying your cadence quite a bit; people used to geared bikes tend to settle on a narrower preferred range and like closely spaced gears for fine tuning.

wphamilton

I ran my commuter as an 8 speed for about a year and was perfectly fine with that. I put a triple on it (24 speed) for a hilly century, and then switched it to a standard double for my normal knocking about. Each has its uses.

halfspeed

No. They generally use 22.

StephenH

On my single bike, I have triple up front, 9 speed in back. Mostly, I use big ring + top 8 in back, middle ring + bottom one or two in back. So maybe 10 or 12 out of the 27.
On the tandem, it's a 3x10, and use probably a dozen out of those.
Generally, you won't find anybody knowledgeable that calls that a "27 speed" or "30 speed" bicycle- you'll see that used on Craigslist by somebody that doesn't actually ride the bike or something like that.

mrblue

I actually live in a pretty hilly place (San Francisco) and over time I've learned how to negotiate hills with my fixed gear bikes. With my road bike, the hills are definitely easier since I have the option of shifting, but I still can't imagine using more than 2-5 different gear combinations. Mostly, I'm just afraid of the shifting...I'm a little paranoid that I'm going to throw something out of whack or grind a gear into dust. I know this is not true, but coming from a fixie mindset this is a whole new world.

mrodgers

Yup, I am always running through my entire driveline, 27 gears. I have 26/36/48 in front and 9 speed 11-34 on the back. I have a speed differential on the road of 3 mph to 35 mph in a few spots. The only way I know what it is to ride on flat is that I also ride on the paved bike trail along the river. On the road, I don't have a single section that I ride that is flat. I am either going uphill or downhill. I typically only move between the small ring and 34t cog to the 2nd ring and run up to around 7th or 8th gear (15t and 13t I think) because I don't actually want to be doing 35 mph, but on occasion I have a long run downhill for a mile or so where I get up into top gear and go. Typically my hills are quarter to half mile long constant up and down.

rm -rf

Yes, all 20 gear combinations. I ride anywhere from 3mph to 40mph around here. I like to keep my cadence between 85 and 95 rpm, so I use almost every gear combination on most rides. I'll shift a gear even on a short uphill that's only 4 or 5 pedal strokes long, then shift down again. It's that fast and easy to shift.

GPS recordings of some of my local rides. Red is over 30mph, dark blue is under 5 mph.

EmptyFridge

May I ask what you're using to view that data?

wphamilton

Actually I think you have a good point. I only used 3 or rarely 4 of my 8 gears when commuting, and probably 95% of the time otherwise. But I did use all of them some times.

What I find ironic is that I am no better off at the low end than running 1x8. I had 44x28, and the low gear on my double was 38x23, actually a harder gear. Even after changing to a 25 tooth cog, it's still about the same as it was (but more range at the top end). The only big advantage is having smaller gaps between gears. I could easily live with only the bottom 5 gears of my original 8 ... but prefer not to.

Of course the difference from a single speed is greater. I'm talking about a wide range cassette vs one with one tooth difference between most gears, but I can see your point in that context.

joeyduck

I have a triple (26-36-48) on the front and a 9 speed (11-32) on the back. I usually only leave the big ring for my middle on Friday afternoons on one uphill . (I did try the middle ring today for a change).

My usual commute I may use 9 gears, but I never pay actual attention to which cogs I am in, I would venture a guess I spend most of the time in 6 of the 9.

Here goes at my work through of what I use.

I know I use the 32 on starts going up hill, I do not mind cross chaining and never had a problem with it. I will sometimes shift into the 32 then back to down to the 28 just for stop light starts. Once I get going I hop down to 16 and probably stay in the 14, 16 or 18 on most stretches. I will drop to the 11 on downhills or when I am really giving it. I do not think that I use the 12 or 21 very much and I usually use the 24 or 28 to climb.

So I mainly use the 28, 16, 14, 18 and 24. I should try to monitor it sometime since I am always curious, when I changed cassettes (from 11-34) I found the 15, 17 and 20 were the most slippy/skippy gears.

My small ring has only been used to make my son laugh at my legs spinning in the 26-32 combo. Of course I also tuck and grunt and spin and get no grip.

RollCNY

90% of my riding is on a single speed, 47x16, on which I commute, do group rides, and ride long distance (130 to 150 miles).

10% of my riding is on a geared bike, 50/34 with 12-23 9 speed cassette. I use 17 of the gears (as that layout gets you linear gearing with only one gear of overlap) in group rides and long distance rides.

My former bike was a 1x9, 46 with 12-25 9 speed. I used all 9 gears combinations.

It is simply a different style of riding between the bikes.

alexaschwanden

I have a 3x9 setup on my mountain bike and use about 80% of them. Road bike about 50%.

Leinster

A guy from your neck of the woods came out riding with us the other weekend, he had a 53/39 and said he hemmed and hawed before flying out about whether to put his 23 or 25 cassette on for the trip. As I was talking to him at the top of a 1400ft climb he said he was very, very glad he picked the 25.

himespau 

I'm lazy with regards to shifting, so I typically use my middle ring (3x10) for all 10 cogs, and then shift up or down to one of the other rings and use the extreme-most 2-3 cogs on those. Sometimes, I'll stay in the outer or inner ring longer before shifting back to the middle, but I'd say 90-95% of my riding uses those 14-16 out of my 30 possible combinations. I'm fine with that.

njkayaker

Two (or four) of the 24 entail "cross chaing". Some of the 24 are duplicates.

That means the actual usable gears are less than 24.

For reasonable (smooth) front shifting, the differences in the number of teeth on the chain rings can't be too different (around 10-16). That ends-up meaning that there is a fair amount of overlap between the ranges of the gear-inches (effective gearing) for the three (or two) chain rings.


That is, you might think you get this (no overlap):
​
++++++++
--------++++++++
----------------++++++++


What you get is this (overlap of gear ranges):
​
++++++++
-----++++++++
--------++++++++


Having some overlap is useful since shifting the front is slower than shifting the rear.

Ideally, you want a "wide" range split-up into "even" steps.

To get a wide range with a double chain-ring, you tend towards steps that are too wide apart.
With a triple chain-ring, you can get a wide range with steps that are closer together but the trade-off is more complicated shifting (you might need to shift the front and the rear to get the step/gear that matches your cadence).

Clearly, single-speed riders might tolerate a wider cadence range than riders with mutiple gears.