m.c. 

I don't know if it was mentioned in this thread or another one but veercycle.com has a split belt to let you put a belt drive on a standard frame.

m.c. 

But he doesn't make a single chainring crankset in his Silver line.

I've got a couple of frames I want to build up and I think I may go this route. I have no hills and I remember having a 5 speed as a kid and it was more than enough. I only used a few gears of the 21 on my hybrid I just gave away. My wife always wants a Chainguard on her bikes. I don't know what I would gain with extra gears.

Mojo31

I'd spend millions for that!

Well, maybe not millions, but a lot

70sSanO

That is pretty cool. I wonder how easy it would be to remove the rear wheel to fix a flat without a tensioner to release more belt? I've never used a belt drive, so my question may not be applicable.

John

m.c. 

It looks like there is a series of pins holding the belt together. It doesn't look like something easy to do on the side of the road. I guess the wheel would be able to move enough to get the belt off of the cog depending on the dropouts and the belt length.

livedarklions

Ashtabula. Those cranks are ripe for a comeback.

livedarklions

8 gears is a good number. I do about 80% of my riding on two bikes with early ;90s Shimano 600.

Honestly, though, I kept waiting for Grant to come up with some reason too many gears was actually a real thing.

Jeff Neese

Read the book. It's an entire chapter.

Mojo31

Imagine the pros complaining about those dangerous, rapidly spinning teeth pointing outboard in back.



The left side of the course would become coveted.

WhyFi

Run out of fingers and toes for counting what? The number of gears available or the number of his thinly veiled kvetch-at-the-whippersnappers threads?

indyfabz

Yes.

livedarklions

I did read the book, and he seemed to think that "people will shift too much" was a self-evident evil. That chapter was completely unconvincing.

tomato coupe

An entire chapter? It's less than two full pages, even when formatted like a kids book. It would have been one page in a real book.

livedarklions

Wow, I just reread it. It's actually worse than I remembered. Too much gradation is a waste, but don't be concerned if your gear combinations overlap. Not only is that vapid, it's more than a little contradictory.

LarrySellerz

4 chainrings up front with the biggest being ridiculously large and unpractical in most situations. Like the opposite of a granny gear

big john

Quad cranks were a thing years ago. They may be still available. I don't think they had ridiculously large big rings, though.

Jeff Neese

Well, it's actually four pages in my Kindle edition. But no, it's not a long and difficult-to-understand idea. He's not talking about racing or competitive cycling of any kind - he's writing for the "unracer". Most modern bicycles have way too many gears for the average, non-competitive cyclist.

drlogik 

In the future I see an automatic (maybe programmable also) internal geared rear hub and/or with a direct drive or kinetic mechanism of some kind. Somebody will invent a hubless rear wheel like the hubless rear motorcycles.

big john

I don't see how you can have too many gears. If you have the low and high gears you want then all the gears in between will help you to cruise at your preferred cadence. This is especially helpful when riding with others, even if you aren't racing.

Koyote

That's not philosophy, it's opinion. There is a world of difference between the two.

tomato coupe

No, it's not difficult to understand ... but, it's still nonsense.

indyfabz

Are 27 too many for my touring bike, which I actually use for loaded touring? I’ve been dying to know.

livedarklions

The obvious question he never answers is what the harm is that makes it "way too many". The " chapter" is all assertion with no justification. If it's a cost issue, there's plenty of bikes available with fewer gears for a lot cheaper than he's charging. If it's the added weight of the extra cogs, that's hardly a "unracer" concern. If, as he says, people are shifting too much, what the hell is the standard for that?

Herzlos

If you're lurching between surfaces on a too-many-gear bike then you've got a lot of shifting to do. Like if you're dealing with a steep valley, you may be in a very high gear on approaching the bottom and then want to shift to a really easy gear on the incline, but that may involve 10 shifts on a 12 speed and only 4 shifts on a 6 speed. It's one of the only things I liked about having a 2/3x setup on my mountain bike; that you can get a fairly big jump from just a single front cog change.

Of course, some modern levers allowing you to shift down by 2 or 3 gears at a time sort of makes it redundant.

I'd still choose range over increments (11-36 8 speed is more useful than 11-28 12 speed), but I'm not a competitive rider.

Paul Barnard

I suspect at some point that real world gearing will creep into the drop bar segment. Let me 'splain.

I am of the belief that the high end gearing on bikes is mostly overkill ,and that the low end isn't low enough. You'll find 50-36 up front and 11-28 to maybe 11-32 in the back on most road bikes. Few riders need that 50 front ring. Most bicyclists could do quite well with 46-11 on the high end. That nets you 30 MPH at a 90 RPM cadence and 36 MPH spinning up to a 110 cadence. What riders would that not serve well? Very few.

On the low end, 36 front-28 back is 34 gear inches and 36-32 is 29 gear inches. Mere mortal riders who ride steep conditions, long climbs, loaded climbs or rough climbs will find themselves wanting with that kind of gearing. Getting that down to 20 gear inches would suit most riders much better. A readily available GRX 46-30 crankset with the readily available 11-42 cassette gets you into the 18 gear inch range. Problem solved right? NOPE. You'll not find drop bar shifter/brake levers that will run that.

My guess is that the newest trend in gearing will cater to mortals by offering 46-30 11-42 gearing. Who among us would find that inadequate and why? Very few racers and sport riders.