Originally Posted by
carpediemracing
Someone in the bike industry commented on single speeds.
"It just means I'm in the wrong gear 95% of the time." Which isn't technically accurate, since maybe you're riding where that one gear is the correct gear. But I'll paraphrase his comment.
"It just means you have a 95% chance of being in the wrong gear."
I have to say it's all dependent on intended use and location.
When I lived in Savannah which is flat as a pancake, but far less appealing than one - I commuted around on a 1979 Murray coaster brake bike - pictured here for your amusement:
I will tell you though, that
100% of the times I rode it, I was 100% in the right gear for what I needed to do.
The good thing about the one speed bike, is assuming it came with reasonable gearing from the factory, it's probably more likely to have the rider in the "correct" gear than a multi-speed bike. Novices seem for some reason to always want to put bikes into the tallest gears, so a lot of the time on a multi-speed bike, a rider will be in the wrong gear 100% of the time...