Originally Posted by birdmove

Just turned 68 on Monday. I'm a prostate cancer survivor with one bad knee. Still riding my single speed cheapo flat bar road bike with C700x38 wheels. Bought the bike before my health problems and just got back to riding it about 4 months ago. It has 48 tooth front and an 18 tooth rear sprockets. Gear ratio (I'm an old motorcyclist after all) is 2.66. Not a bad gear ratio, but would be better for a healthier rider. I ride a 2.5 mile ride every day, and the home stretch is a series of 6-7 uphills. Hills are tough, as the knee is awkward to use standing up and pedalling. I'm riding for fun, excercise, and hoping to improve my knee and to build up strength and stamina again which 2 years of cancer treatments took away from me. I am also losing weight. I like the simplicity of a single speed, but my desire to work up to best by able to go on up to 30 mile round trips (and maybe carrying groceries on the return) has me thinking of getting a bike with 7 or more gears. Did an 11 mile run on Wednesday to our weekly chess player group, to see if I could do it. Getting there was a bit tough. Had to do a couple short walks of shame, and stop for water a few times, but most of the hills were on the way to the site, much of it riding against the wind. But, riding home was a blast! Lots of downhill and the wind at my back. There are three towns within a 30 mile round trip. Hilo, Pahoa, and Keaau, and I'm going to work up to doing all three. Baring my age and health issues, the gearing on this bike, for a single speed, is pretty good. Pushing myself on my daily ride, I am able to average just shy of 14 mph. On the harder first leg of my chess run, with quite a few hills, I averaged just under 9 mph. I wonder how I could do with more gears?