Imagine the tallest, longest hill in your town. Given the choice of two gearing options, which would you choose? If your bike didn't have a wide enough range for a desired cadence and energy output on both sides of the spectrum (like an IGH, for example), think about what you would compromise.

When I look at the gearing of production bikes and my own needs, I find that almost every bike out there comes with more than I need on the top, but not enough on the bottom. Are bicycle companies making this choice for consumers? I'm curious to know what fellow consumers prefer.

I prefer to be able to spin up a hill. If I have to coast going down, that's fine.

We don't have a single hill.

we don't have hills in chicago either. many people can, and do, get by just fine with singlespeeds and fixies, but i like to have 3 gears at an absolute minimum because i commute along the windy-ass shore of lake michigan. at minimum i would want a cruising gear, then a low for headwinds, and a high for tailwinds.

Really? What kind of bike? Bikes I ride seem to be geared too low.

50-34 x 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23. Enough to go up or down anything in the Colorado Rockies.

I run 52-34 x 14-16-18-21-24-28 on my commuter and can comfortably ride both up and down really any hill in my area (Southwest Ohio). I have just enough top end to be able to spin ~110rpm down steep hills and enough low end to push ~90rpm up those same hills without too much trouble. If I were to err on either end, though, it would probably be the low end, even though I have nothing against walking up hills.

Cheers
lverhagen

I'm not a spinner in the first place, so I picked the second option. My commuting bikes are geared as follows:

MTB: 26-36-48 with an 11-32, and the 48 gets at least 90% of the use, including stoplight launches.
Road: 39-53 with an 11-28.

Rohloff Hub .. have 2, both with 16t cog.. 26" wheel; 38t CR, 20" wheel; 53t CR.

I can go about 35 mph down my hill just coasting. No need to pedal, so I don't need any higher than my standard mountain bike gearing.

Up that hill is a different story; I'm doing well to go fast enough to keep my balance.

Maybe for you. Some of us like the 28 x 32 for a low gear on our bikes.

For non competitive purposes any gearing over 100 gear inches is almost a waste and I like to set my derailleur bikes up with a more compact front triple and a tighter spaced rear block which helps with shifting and reduces those steps between cogs as this does a lot to increase efficiency.

Spinning out on downhills is different between individuals... some might consider 110 rpm to be their limit while for others much higher rpms are possible.

My Moulden XC bike gets a lot of use as a commuter and runs a 24/34/44 with an 11-30 8 speed so has a top gear of just over 100 gear inches and a stump pulling low which will allow me to pedal up and out of the valley where one might find grades that range from 12-18%.

Would like to see the folks that design hybrid city bikes to use an mtb triple and a tighter spaced rear block... with this you could almost use a road block with an 11-25 and still retain some excellent low hill climbing gearing while really improving shifting.

No hills here in Florida but in New Jersey, on my a 1993 KHS Motana Comp, I had a 28-38-48 and a 12-27. Even with one good size hill going up the Palisades, I was always in the middle ring in front and the 48x14 going down.

I'd probably go for slightly higher than comfortable low gear then HTFU 'til it wasn't an uncomfortably high gear anymore!

Actually I did just that a few years ago. I'd gotten so outta shape that I was crying like a baby trying to get up Col de Muchas on my 42x28, walking up it about 1/3 of the time. Now I'm rolling right up it in my 42x21 and I feel like I'm about to break through to the 42x18 if I keep hitting the hills.

I can still spin out my 52x12 at 44mph or so on the Col de Muchas downhill if I get a running start so I guess I'm just barely covering the "comfy on the downhill" criterium but that's no biggie.

And it's not the steepest hill in town but it's the steepest road hill I hit on a regular basis (at least 4x per week).

44/17

It's low enough I can stand and make my way up the long steep hills around here, I'm comfortable on the flats keeping a 19mph average, and I coast going downhill because well, what the point really? It's downhill and I don't care how fast I go; I don't need to pedal.

I spin up a hill on my commute going 90rpm at 5.5ish miles an hour. When translated to flat speed, that power output is around 13-14mph. Using the gearing you suggested, I'd be spinning around 50rpm up that same hill. Not my cup of tea.

Faster, Faster, FASTER!

Here's my Col de Muchas results over the last couple months. Friday the 9th was with about 60 lbs load on the MTB but I swore I'd stay in the mid ring so I ground up @ 8.9, thus netting that massive wattage number. I dunno what happened on the 21st.

Sat, Sep 17, 2011 10.7 mph - 184 w - 2:30
Thu, Sep 15, 2011 10.5 mph - 188 w - 2:32
Mon, Sep 12, 2011 9.5 mph - - - 2:48
about 10 hours ago 8.9 mph - 158 w - 3:00
Fri, Sep 09, 2011 8.2 mph - 241 w - 3:14
Sat, Aug 27, 2011 8.0 mph - 167 w - 3:19
Sun, Aug 21, 2011 5.3 mph - - - 5:03

46-16 fixed. The hills I encounter on my daily ride to class are pretty easy too.

I ride SS/FG. My gear ratios are are set up around 63-70 gear inches. It let's me climb whatever hills I have in my area and I can maintain a reasonably fast pace on the flats. I prefer spinning to mashing.

I mostly use a 3-speed IGH, set up with 3rd gear as my cruising gear (pedalling at a moderate cadence) with 1st and 2nd for acceleration and climbing. If I spin out on downhills, I'm more than happy to let gravity to the job of propelling me down the hill.

If you stop pedaling going downhill you coast, if you stop pedaling going uphill you quickly come to a dead stop and fall over.... having the right gear to pedal uphill is clearly more important if you have any desire to actually propel yourself forward on your bike.

I don’t really have a commuting bike, but I have a variety of bikes I ride to commute. I have a touring bike without the equipment I guess is my preferred commuter even though it weighs in about 30 pounds. My area of Pa is rolling landscape with deep and steep waterway crossings where creeks enter Lake Erie every 5 to 10 miles. With 700 tires I have 26,42,52 front and 13-36, 9 speed in the back. At 19 gear inches the heavier bike seems very light and spinning is my preferred method to climb even if it's at 3MPH.

My road bike is super light and I dropped the high front gears it came with and switched them out with a mtn bike triple with the granny removed and run a 32,42 front and 13-24, 7 speed cassette that it came with. The low gear on that bike 35 gear inch. It is a pleasure to ride on rolling hills and very fast, but on an all day climb I'll take the touring bikes weight and gears.

The closest thing I have to a commuter maybe is the two hard tail mtn bikes that I have set up with more of an upright posture, one with hard narrow road tires and one with 26 x 2.25 balloon tires. Kind of my dirt road pot hole commuter both have the mtn gearing triples.

After a lot of gearing thoughts around my riding taking into account my age, strength, and weight. I have come to the conclusion hearing what others use for gears doing a certain type of riding, that it doesn’t apply to me in the least unless I know strength and weight part of the equation as well. I have been reading the Clydesdale, over 50, road, commuting and touring forums quite a bit as of late and we all fall into a mixture of two or more of the categories. As a kid my heavy single speed got the job done as a teen the tall geared 10 speed was the ticket. Now I'm looking at 27 gears and I sure hope I don’t get any older, HaHa.

Good thread I enjoyed the read.

Some of us even like 20x34 for a low gear on our bikes...and a higher high (46x11)

To answer Scheherezade's initial question: Yes there is a bias against low gears. Shimano has been raising the low gear on mountain bike for 10 or 15 years. Used to be that you could get a crankset that would take a 18 tooth low gear - not that anybody spec'd that low a gear. You could even get a 38 tooth low on the rear. Then along came Shimano and their silly 4 bolt cranks and the lowest you could go was 22 and the cassette age ushered in drivetrains with lots and lots of gears but no range. Road biking is even worse. Really? You need 10 steps between 11 and 23? And road derailers only go up to 29 teeth? Why bother with a long cage road derailer in the first place?

Now the push is towards even higher low gears on mountain bikes (2 x 10 systems) and compact cranks on road bikes. They may be great for racing and racers but just horrible for us mere mortals.

I recently did a 160 mile weekend tour on my commuter bike. I coasted down one hill at 47 mph and rode up the next hill at 4 mph. I'll take the lower gears over higher gears any time. Beats walking.

For long grades of 3%-5% my sweet spot is about 52-56 gear inches (42x20) - I can ride on a steady hill in that ratio all day long (well, until the glycogen runs out ).
On really steep sections (12-20+%), it depends on the distance. On short steeps (less than 100 yards) I actually prefer to get out of the saddle, and find a 42-47 inch gear to be sufficient (42x25 or 39x23).

Going down hill, I'll spin to whatever the gearing allows, and will start coasting at about 120rpm.

That encompasses 95% of my riding, so in conventional drivetrain terms (I am an IGH rider) a 39/53 with a 11-23 pretty much does the trick.

My IGH drivetrains typically range from 28 gear inches to 90-100, which I find more than adequate for my needs. I have only used my lowest 3 gears (alfine 8) on single track, and 1st (28 inches) feels like a wall climber to me.
I rarely used the granny gear during 20+ years of mountain biking with conventional drivetrains, so this makes sense. When riding 26ers I found 32x32 to be plenty low for 95% of my riding. I would grind out the 5% where the granny would have been useful, but that was rare enough that I preferred having a 2x9 at the time.

My IGH's give me similar range to the 2x9 setup with a much better drive train operation. I'm building a Nuvinci N360 wheel for my 29er/monstercross/dirt tourer, so we'll see how that goes.......