Originally Posted by
freckles
Ok, here's where I'm very ignorant. I don't understand gear ratios. I've had various kinds of bicycles with different gears(external and igh) and wheel sizes. Some were easier to ride/pedal than others and I understand its due to the gear ratio/spread but I don't know how to calculate it.
This particular Mint Bob 6 crank is 50T, cassette is 11-24T w/16" wheels. How will that translate to riding in the city for multi modal transportation? Good/bad for flats? Good or bad for hills?
That's gonna give you a range of 33.5-73.0 gear inches. 33 is typical for folding bike lows, you can climb with it while standing out of the saddle, but a decent hill, if you like to spin up, you're gonna want close to 20 gear inches. 73 is perhaps just enough high for the flat, barely. My folder, after upgrade, has 21-85 gear inches, I can do hills, and not needing a tour de france fast high gear.
Look up "sheldon brown gear calculator", enter values for a bike you have that has all the gearing you need, and compare. I typically think in gear-inches for results, there is also gain-ratio.