Originally Posted by
JohnDThompson
That depends on your hills and your legs. As I get older, I find I need lower gears. Currently, my fixed gear ride has 44 front/17 rear gearing.
As you still have all your rear cogs and front chainrings installed, try different combinations to see what works for you.
By "size of front crank" do you mean the length of the arms? On a fixed gear bike, shorter arms provide more clearance so you can take corners faster. But it sounds like you'r building a single-speed, not a fixed gear, so you can coast through corners if you need to, and ground clearance isn't a concern.
Tooth count determines the gear ratio. Fewer teeth in front means lower gears, fewer teeth in back means higher gears.
Fewer teeth in front makes it easier to pedal; more teeth in back makes it easier to pedal. But easier to pedal also means you'll hit your maximum pedaling RPMs sooner. On a fixed gear, this can be an issue with long downhills, but if you have a freewheeling cog, you can always coast.
The fewer teeth in front, the easier it is to pedal, but also slower. Whether that makes it "better" is a subjective judgement.
Thank you for reply. The size of the front crank I meant the size of the gear. I still have 3 in front as I have not changed to a single speed crankset yet.
When I tested, I placedmy chain to the smallest front gear which has 28T. And I used it with a 18T rear gear. It is good for me.
My question regarding the size was, does gear size plays a role or it's more on the number of teeth? Example, a bigger gear with 28T and a smaller gear with the same number of teeth provides the same performance?