Originally Posted by
Young Version
Gear-trains are incredibly simple, so I'm going to try to explain them briefly.
If your ratio is 48/16, for instance, it can be simplified to 3/1. That means that for every revolution of the cranks, the wheel does three revolutions. A 45/15 ratio would produce an identical result in terms of pedaling effort required. A ratio of, say, 40/16 means that for every revolution of the cranks, the wheel does two and a half revolutions. It becomes easier to pedal, since the effort you put in is not moving you forward as far. When you're going down a hill, however, this becomes a bad thing, since your cranks will be turning more for each wheel revolution.
Thank you.
couple more questions:
- What is the average or standard or recommended gear ratio for a single speed?
- On the wikipedia page for bicycle gearing (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_gearing) it gives some examples. For shorter rides (up to 5 miles) use a gear around 60. How does that gear number relate to the gear ratio?
- Regarding the issue of a lower gear ratio complicating going down hills, is that really an issue with a single speed? Or is that more of a fixed gear problem?
thanks again for the help.