Originally Posted by
C9H13N
I'm being facetious. But I do think people over-obsess about narrow gearing on this forum and that the ability to vary cadence is becoming a lost art.
You seem to be less facetious. There is no art to vary cadence. The art and skill to bike riding lost on the masses witnessed everyday on roadways is, the inability to select gearing to stay within a zone of cadence to optimize power over a long distance. That is the art. The opposite of what you write. More gearing options aka with a 2 ring set up with very tight gear spacing in back allows a given rider to achieve this. In fact, it is the underlying reason why cassettes have evolved from 5 to 11 cogs in back. If larger gearing gradations didn't matter, there would have been no evolution to tighter gear spacing in the rear. Same premise for automobiles and motorcycles. Some cars have 8 speed automatic transmissions now affording a larger range of gearing improving not only efficiency but acceleration.