42/16 all the way. Single speed ;) It really makes a great commuter gear. Hills aren't much of a problem in it, although there's one on my secondary route that kills me every time, its a really really steep bridge. On my geared bike (which currently has a busted rear wheel) I'm usually on 48/20 or right in there.

42x16, fixed. I've found that to be a pretty good all-around gear. Gets me up all the hills I need to get up around here and I can spin it relatively comfortably up to about 27 mph. Get up around 30 or more and it becomes a challenge...

-Trevor

69 gear inches.

But I have to chuckle at the question. On the first couple of family rides two of my kids and my wife kept asking what gear they should be in. They were clearly agitated when I told them whatever gear made the peddling comfortable for the speed they wanted to go. They wanted a specific number, and finally they insisted to know what "number" I was in. I told them they're all different, ..and then they wanted to know how anybody could switch bikes and have a clue what gear number to use. And it just went on from there with no resolution. They're still convinced I'm clueless about bike gears.

I dunno, 42 x 15, I guess. Nice and easy for cruising the superflat streets of the River City. Heh, I'm probably carrying around 26 superfluous gear combinations.

Very interesting question. I'm going to have to pay more attention. This is an interesting interesting question.


30x23 == 35" , hard uphill
30x12 == 68" , level or slight uphill preparing for downshift
52x14 == 96" , slight downhill
42x15 == 76" , level

Similar question, would be "How do you use your gears?", do you stay on one chainring, or do you double shift a lot?

Oh, forgot: agreed most of cruising is between 10 and 15 mph. My commute range is from 7 to 25 mph. I shift a lot as I'm working on improving cadence.

42 ring on biopace crank and 15-20 in rear

Seconded. I use 44*16 (71,5 inches) ALL the time on my flat commute. Time to build a ss.

Well, I'll tackle that question too! Answer: it depends :D.

Seriously, on a bike with decent index shifters, I'm perfectly happy to double shift. Grip shift in particular makes it incredibly easy to do accurately. My current bike has friction shifters, though. Double shifts take a lot more time. Shifting involves just a tiny bit more effort, and requires me to take one hand off the bars, so I prefer to shift only when necessary. I do stay in the middle chainring a lot, since it has most of the gears I need. There's a lot of overlap with the large chainring, with only the smallest two cogs on my six-speed freewheel really offering combinations I couldn't get with the middle ring, so I only tend to upshift on big hills. The granny is physically impossible to use with anything below the third-largest cog, so it's only for tackling hills. I'm hoping to put together a singlespeed sometime soon. That way I won't have a choice of chainrings!