Many people want a lot of gears, if they ride in steep hills, with their folding bike. They often pay much money for an eight or even twelve gear bike.

But IMO it suffices to have just one gear for that, namely a moderately low gear. One can use that also on plain terrain, against strong winds, and with heavy luggage, older age, and little muscle power.

Having just one gear will strongly reduce the weight, size, cost and repair time of your bike. And you can also do steep climbs walking or running along your bike, esp. with heavy luggage. That is also a healthy workout. So you can keep it cheap and simple.

It is also possible to choose an additional extreme low gear to have two gears. Why do you want more gears?

I enjoy single speed bikes but additional speeds are also nice especially on extended grades, headwinds or both. In the winter I run my Brompton as a single and in warmer weather I go back to a 3 speed, or if serious climbing is likely I add a 38 tooth chain ring for greasy finger shifting, giving me about 5 speeds considering overlap. The extra gears usually let me go a little faster so I will extend my ride further in nice weather.

Thanks for your interesting reply.

I love that feeling of working through the gears until I'm in the highest gear going at a fairly high speed on the flats or downhill. I love the sensation of speed that you can get on a bike which is far greater than any car with the wind beating against your face. Single gear is not for me. Also I'm heavy so need low gears for going up hills and walking with a bike always looks like a fail to me.

'Soon after his discovery of the beneficial effects of cycling, Frank Bowden acquired a financial interest in a small bicycle work shop in Raleigh Street, Nottingham-which he was later to form into the Raleigh Cycle Company. He foresaw the possibilities of the bicycle, but ever since his hill trips in France in 1887 he had in mind the desirability of a variable gear on the machine to help cope with gradients if cycling were to become a popular pastime and not simply the plaything of health and physical fitness addicts.' - Sturmey Archer, 50 Years of Leadership, 1952

The two-speed Crypto-Dynamic was a sensation when it debuted on the British cycling scene in 1882, and it was the commercial leader until the lighter, simpler Manchester Hub two-speed came on the market in the late 1890s. The question of 'how many gears?' occupied the cycle enthusiasts' debates for much of the period of 1900-1910. The 1907 'Multi-Speed Gearing' article in Cycling tried to present a neutral case, but ultimately was a little disparaging of one and two speed gearing. Certainly by the start of WWI the case had been decided in favor of three speeds, and those 3 ratios are still with us today.

Why do I want more gears? So I don't spin like a demented monkey when going faster than the crawl you seem to like. So I can handle all terrain. All weather. All company except Lance Armstrong.

Please go ahead and have only 1 gear. I used to commute on a singlespeed for about a year or more. I enjoyed the simplicity and imagined that I would have no maintenance. That was a pipe dream. Even the idea of less maintenance was a dream. Complexity in gearing does not equate more maintenance in my experience. Cycling conditions dominate - dry weather, low wear. Wet weather, extreme wear.

Tx for your reply. A single gear bike is much easier and cheaper to repair IMO, esp. if I can do it myself. And it is lighter to carry on the high and dangerous stairs of railroad stations, esp. with heavy luggage. I drive mainly in heavy city traffic where high speeds are not safe anyway. Your situation and wishes may differ of course.

I think the lowest gear of three gear bikes is not low enough. If I had two gears, I would like a moderately low gear for carrying heavy luggage, and an extreme low gear for climbing.

Not keen on a singlespeed folder if it is no good to ride out of the saddle. To my mind that is most bromptons other than the S bar model. If the bikes asks you to stay in the saddle, like my birdie when its in loaded pannier mode, I like to have a good range of gears to be comfortable sitting up hills etc.
Single speeds are frustrating often, but great when the situation suits.

To each his own, but that hasn't been my experience. I estimate that at least 70% of my maintenance time is due to tires/tubes and another 10% to brakes. Eliminating the gears would only have rather minimal savings in maintenance effort.
Taking off the multi-gear related components would save me at most 2 lbs. so the bike weight would drop from about 24 lbs. to 22 lbs. If I'm carrying loaded panniers the impact would be even less - from 44 lbs. down to 42 lbs.
Neither benefit is worth giving up the convenience of being able to stay in a comfortable cadence range across a wide variety of terrain and wind conditions.

No, no it doesn't. The change in weight is negligible (and only matters for carrying the bike, not riding it). Frame is what costs the money, not the gears. And the selection of folding bikes that are single speed are tiny.

And telling people to walk up hills? Seriously? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Sure. Have only one gear if you want. Save more weight? Only one wheel.

No such thing as a single geared bike because you always have the option of going for the 24 inch gear ..two feet..

But little difference in maintenance between a single speed bike and a IHG if you don't get punctures.
Also if your bike needs to run a chain tensior to fold, like the bromptom, it makes a lot of sense to make that chain tensioner a rear mech in my book.
A two speed Brompton seems the more sensible set up over a single speed imo.

Unicycle? Your gear is your wheel size.

I have Two gears on my brompton, the first two weeks I had It I was looking up options to make it a 6 gear. But after a while I got used to it and currently I wouldn't want the extra weight of a 6 gear. I can do some hills in the lower gear as long as I keep my speed up and the high gear is high enough to go up to 30kph easily on flats (It's a commuter so that is more than enough for me);

Unless you install a Schlumpf in there...

It really depends on 1). Your chosen gear ratio and 2). where you are riding.
Some places have almost no hills so gears are useless actually, or almost useless.
Right now have all my 3 folders set up single speed, but that will change.
Single speed even worked in LA whenI rode up thru Cold water canyon everyday, it wasn't ideal but it worked well enough.
The ratio is a 55 x16 on 451 wheels. Works great most places: London- fine, Seoul- fine, Munich, Germany -good. Paris -great. Zurich , fine. In NYC the only places you really need gears is the bridges, but even then you can grin and bear it, which I did for 15 years now I run a 7 speed on my daily/non-folder The places you can't use it Lausanne, Switzerland (!) and maybe if I go back to LA I would bring gears to make it more enjoyable, still gotta figure that out. So it depends on where you ride really. The weight savings is good when lugging the case around in airports that as for sure.

I did a 22 mile ride yesterday while pulling my son in a trailer. We were off-road for about 11 of those miles, and 4.5 of those were in water and mud in the swamp. I promise you that I made judicial use of the 8-speeds that I had at my disposal. There was no way that any single gear would have allowed me to pull a trailer through mud and also cruise along the ocean front at a decent pace.

True, but the Kris Holm Uni hub is an overdrive 2nd gear , the primary gear is still 1:1


schlumpf innovations




M3L with the Mountain drive , 6 speeds spread over a 17 ~ 80 G" range..




...

If you don't need gears, you don't live where I do.

Even pro riders use a compact drivetrain during "La Vuelta" when they ride here.

I have a Dahon with horizontal dropouts. I tried it as a single speed, works ok if you are willing to compromise top end and walk up steep grades. I also tried it on a 700C bike, found I really missed downshifting for stoplights, its now a dingle speed, which is perfect for my use.

Your Two Feet Gear is always the fallback option.

My daily 60km commute with 4 hills would really suck with a single speed. I usually keep low gears while I get my heart rate up each leg of the ride, and then keep on higher gears when I am at my optimal HR, but as I am aging rapidly these days, it seems I stay on lower gears longer. Tooling around town with just flat spots, then okay I might do the hipster thingy a bit. Nowadays I'm not getting places fast, just making it there in one piece is the objective.

There are chain driven unicycles. You can gear those as high as you like. (Side benefit - since the bottom bracket is above the wheel, those bike have plenty of pedal clearance for high speed cornering. )

Ben

the 6 foot tall ones are chain driven, you have one that is not 1:1, how do you stay up on it, got a video?

Multi speeds are just so much more enjoyable. The human walks at about 4 miles per hour. I ride my bike at between 6 and 16 miles per hour most the time---rarely below 10 mph. Depending on terrain I might change gears 10 or more times per mile.

With a single speed I am rarely in the most efficient gear. One of the great joys of a bicycle is being able to efficiently match my mood and how hard I want to work to the ride I am on. A simple 8 or 10 speed derailleur geared bike easily allows me to be efficient in my workout. I have an electric bike for my girlfriend specifically so I can work as hard or as little as I want without having to wait for her. Much more enjoyable for both of us.

Expensive? really? a new cassette and chain every 5-10k miles? Weight? if a pound makes that big of a difference you might as well just walk.

People think bikes are expensive but spend $7 on a 50 cent cup of coffee or $100 on a $12 pair of pants. Never mind $30k for a car.

Long term one of the best values on the planet is a good $600-1000 geared folding bike---