[MENTION=408499]mrmb[/MENTION] your points were good, I'm just trying to get you to think about it differently. While the FG does sort of force your ride to be more difficult, there's nothing stopping one from mitigating your points by just putting out more effort on a geared bike.

One legitimate counterpoint is that a geared bike enables one to make their ride more difficult in high speed situations when you would otherwise be spun out on the fg.