Originally Posted by jimmuller

I see two issues here, whether that particular bike is a good choice and whether a vintage steel bike can be a good commuter with no special issues. You really need to post that bike in C&V. I'm not an expert on Peugeot's later years but here is what I see.

That bike is a strange mixture of much newer frame and older components. The better approach would be just the reverse, derailleurs upgraded to Suntour (a great period-correct upgrade, still hard to beat), alloy rims, and alloy crank. It looks like someone may have bent the frame of an older Peugeot, founde a new frame, and tried to save money by moving all the older components over to it. If it were my choice I wouldn't go there.

Here is my own UO-8 from a commute a few weeks ago:


Vintage steel has no special requirements. A good frame with the right selection of components and tires can be a great commuter.

Originally Posted by okiride

Does anyone else see a little budgie/bird next to your pedal?

Originally Posted by okiride

...by the way how do you quote more than one person in a single reply on this forum, that is really useful. Thanks.

Originally Posted by jimmuller

"Gear inches" refers to the effective wheel diameter you would have if your pedals were connected directly to the drive wheel. That's how it was with a high-wheeler - you needed a larger wheel to go faster.

You calculate gear inches by multiplying the wheel diameter times the chainring size, then dividing by the cog size. Or as a formula:
G = d * F / R.

A 52T ring with a 14T cog would be 27 * 52 / 14 = ~100 inches. (A 700c wheel is close enough to 27" for this purpose.)

The ideal gear depends on terrain and riding style, of course. I find I ride mostly in the range of 50"-60". For the most common hills around here it is nice to have a low around 32". I almost never use anything higher than, say, 80".

Originally Posted by ThermionicScott

Usually anything over 25 is with some degree of downhill or a tailwind, but I can still apply power up to ~30 MPH or so. Being able to spin is a useful thing if you're in your highest gear.



The others explained it pretty well, but one nice thing about gear inches is that it removes wheel size from the measurement so you can compare gearing across different bikes. 72" is 72", whether you're on a BMX, an MTB, or a road bike with 27" wheels.

Originally Posted by jimmuller

See the little "+ symbol to the right of the Reply With Quote button? Click on that and it will put a check mark over it. You can do more than one note. When you finally Reply With Quote to any message allthe other which have check marks will show up too.

Originally Posted by Daniel4

A few weeks back I thought of using a mountain bike to commute when the winter comes. So I got my son's mountain bike road worthy and took it for a test ride. Boy, did I ever get tired!!! And it's so slow.

The gear ratio of the 15th gear is 48:14. My Sekini 10 speed's 10th gear is 52:14. The extra 1" diameter on the wheels also helps.

So in my opinion a mountain bike is just too slow for commuting. Even if you plan to use mostly park trails, you'll have to come out to join traffic at some point of your trip.

Originally Posted by Daniel4

Well, I don't know about all that. All I know is on my 1979 Sekini 10speed racer, the wheels are 27in dia. the crank set has 52teeth on the largest sprocket and the cassette has 14teeth on the smallest sprocket. On flat ground I peddle about about 7 revolutions per 5 seconds (I just estimated this at my desk), that's 84rpm. Something like 36rpm uphill and I've done uphill on 10th gear.

So at 84rpm I don't know how those calculations would have me going at over 100.

Originally Posted by Sullalto

48/14 at 80 rpm is just under 20mph, 24 mph at 100 rpm...how fast are you going?



That's 100" traveled per pedal revolution, not mph or whatever.