Originally Posted by terrymorse
Data on the subject is pretty hard to find, but here's a chart I pulled from a Human Power journal:
Spicer et al,
On the efficiency of bicycle chain drives;
Human Power, the Journal of the IHPVA; Number 50, Spring 2000
Here's a link to the
PDF containing the chart.
That is pretty interesting stuff. I would have never imagined a 2% difference between a 52-11 and 52-15 at the same power output. But then it gets me wondering how small the difference would be between the 11T and 12T....maybe .5%. Who knows?