Originally Posted by
Steely Dan
i don't know how you SS/FG guys do it. i live in flat-as-a-pancake chicago, but i find that i still NEED gears because i ride directly along chicago's windy-ass lakeshore. on a moderate day i find that my comfortable cruising GIR is 82, but when i have one of those days with a 30 knot headwind on the way into work and then a 30 knot tailwind on the way home, an 82 GIR is woefully inappropriate for both of those conditions. i need to drop down into the 60s (or even 50s) to battle the stiffest headwinds for 15 miles, and then i'll be over 100 on the way home to take advantage of the tailwind pushing me along.
being locked into one GIR all the time would make my rides less fun for me. that's why i got an IGH for my winter commuter, SS-like simplicity, but still allows me to battle the wind on the worst days.
more power to all of you that can do it.
I live in hill country. The only flat ride I've got is on the MUP, and everything else is just up and down. Even so, I've managed to gear myself such that the singlespeed isn't a tough option. For the road I'm using a 44/17, which puts me at right around 70 gear inches. Unless I'm really loaded down with a lot of stuff in the panniers, that's low enough that I can handle the 12% grade section on the way to work (it's only a quarter mile) and the long 7% slogs that the region is so good at doling out.
I've gotten accustomed to not having a choice of gears. When it's windy, I push harder and go slower. When it's steep, I stand up. Sometimes I just stand up to give myself a different cadence and a break from pushing hard. It was odd at first, and I ran a lower gear early on. I started with a 42/18, then a 44/18, now the 44/17.