Originally Posted by
FBinNY
By serious rider, I mean anyone who puts in lots of miles on any sort of regular basis. I don't mean long rides, but rather many miles per week, week in and out, which would include all those you mentioned. It's not elitist and includes everybody who rides often enough to consider himself "serious" about it. I'm sorry that the reference seemed to irk you, but crankiness is your issue, not mine.
Given that this entire thread is about efficiency, a serious rider would be one cares about efficiency, which has to include not only the bike and hub's, but the totality including his engine's efficiency. Which was my point in talking about closer gear steps. Good engine efficiency calls for maintaining reasonable cadence. It may not matter much to someone only going a mile or two, but after a few miles it does.
Wide range is necessary for hilly areas, but a large percentage of riders live and ride where it's flat to gently rolling, and have little use for a wide gear range. The 25%+ steps of most wide range IGH hubs are too far apart and users choose between a gear which is higher or lower than what they would prefer. They might benefit more from more closely spaced choices within the band where they do most of their riding.
I can't see why my statement suggesting that IGH makers should consider creating choices suited to the flatter terrain many people ride in should irk anybody. But this is BF and there are many who prefer to read some sinister unstated meaning into every post.
I get what you're saying but you might as well stick with a single speed. A narrowly spaced 3 speed keeps you near your ideal cadence in such a limited variety of terrain and conditions that there's almost no market. Minneapolis is pretty flat. I ride fixed a lot but when I ride a geared bike, I actually use a fair amount of the range.
I think the IGH manufacturers response would be to get an IGH with more speeds. The drop in efficiency is not significant enough to worry about.
It's true though, when I hop on one of those 3 speed bike share bikes the low is often too low, and the high is often too high. When I have gears, I expect more. A 3 speed just isn't enough if you care about cadence.