Originally Posted by HiYoSilver
Very interesting question. I'm going to have to pay more attention. This is an interesting interesting question.
30x23 == 35" , hard uphill
30x12 == 68" , level or slight uphill preparing for downshift
52x14 == 96" , slight downhill
42x15 == 76" , level
Similar question, would be "How do you use your gears?", do you stay on one chainring, or do you double shift a lot?
Well, I'll tackle that question too! Answer: it depends
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Seriously, on a bike with decent index shifters, I'm perfectly happy to double shift. Grip shift in particular makes it incredibly easy to do accurately. My current bike has friction shifters, though. Double shifts take a lot more time. Shifting involves just a tiny bit more effort, and requires me to take one hand off the bars, so I prefer to shift only when necessary. I do stay in the middle chainring a lot, since it has most of the gears I need. There's a lot of overlap with the large chainring, with only the smallest two cogs on my six-speed freewheel really offering combinations I couldn't get with the middle ring, so I only tend to upshift on big hills. The granny is physically impossible to use with anything below the third-largest cog, so it's only for tackling hills. I'm hoping to put together a singlespeed sometime soon. That way I won't have a choice of chainrings!