Originally Posted by
JTSpeedDemon
Well, after riding around town some on my "new" old 10 speed, I can say that I only really stay on the smaller front gear. I use just about the lowest 5 gears, those are great. The overdrive gear is just too tall for my tastes in most situations, unless I'm going down a very steep hill and somehow want to go EVEN faster!
But it's at least nice to have the option. Good for cruising too.
But let's say some other person owned your bike. Let's say he is bigger and in better shape. He might write "I stay on the larger chain wheel and only drop to the smaller one on very steep hills". So the bike is built to accommodate not just different conditions and roads but different riders.
There is a huge difference in riders. I look at Stava segments ledger boards and see that the top riders are 4X faster than me on hills and 2X faster on flats. On a tropical segment near me, there might be 1,500 riders with posted times. The riders in the top 50 are dramatically different from those near the middle or the bottom and the bike manufacturers make the bikes to be usable by everyone. (Wind drag is the square of the speed, so it works out the best ones are 4X stronger overall)
So on this one hill, I use the lowest or second-lowest gear and ride up at 6 MPH the fastest person on the same road is going 26 MPH and does it as a sprint He is also less than half my age and rides 55 miles a day on average. Looking at online data I see far more variation of rider ability then I see in terrain difference gears are made to accommodate.