Originally Posted by
Phil_gretz
You and I are a lot alike. I think in gear-inches often when I ride. Folks who build and ride fixed gears learn to do this to compare how a particular setup will work for them. And, 72" is the sweet spot for me, so most of the time, I'm mentally comparing the gear that I'm in to what I would be experiencing at 72". Gear-inches are the great normalizer between all types of [road] bike riding.
72” also makes a decent choice for single speed. One of my bikes is running 42/16 SS at 71”, which is about as close as I can get at the moment.
When I run a multi gear cog set, it will have a combination with relatively straight chain-line that produces about 71-72 gear inches and I will spend a lot of time in that gear.
The other bike has the same 42/16 but ends up at 68” on 26” tires. I wouldn’t mind getting that one up to about 71 to 72, but not exactly sure how to make it happen.
Otto