Originally Posted by
spry
If your in a hilly area you do not have a lot of gears to choose from,but that is all I had at 23 back in the day.Guess that is why 30 speeds are out there now,less leg strain.
Yea, I suppose that actually I do live in a hillier area these days. It's not hilly by any real standards, but it's certainly got more ups and downs than where I lived before.
Also, about 8 months after getting the bike, a gear-shifter broke and left me stranded with only a 24T x 42T gear to use. It took a few weeks, but this wore me down considerably, and my leg strength really fell away. Hills that I used to power up with that gear, I couldn't even move on any more.
I wonder if I never quite recovered from that short period of "overtraining".