Originally Posted by
Daniel4
A few weeks back I thought of using a mountain bike to commute when the winter comes. So I got my son's mountain bike road worthy and took it for a test ride. Boy, did I ever get tired!!! And it's so slow.
The gear ratio of the 15th gear is 48:14. My Sekini 10 speed's 10th gear is 52:14. The extra 1" diameter on the wheels also helps.
So in my opinion a mountain bike is just too slow for commuting. Even if you plan to use mostly park trails, you'll have to come out to join traffic at some point of your trip.
The engine and tires are big factors here. Your ~89" top gear is much higher than the 71" on my fixed-gear MTB that often sees speeds over 25 MPH.
But then, now that winter conditions have arrived, it behooves us to ride a little slower and more carefully, so I've geared down to 59" and won't see 25 MPH but rarely.