Hi all,

My name is Mike. I'm a newbie to Bike Forums, and fairly new to riding. I'd assume that some 'newbie questions' can be irritable : - ), but I hope that my question(s) have some validity that you don't mind addressing for me. First...please allow me to describe a quick bit about myself:

I'm 37yrs old and in good shape. I'm 5'11"...weighing in around 202 (athletic build). About 6 months ago I started mountain biking with some friends (here me out, please, this IS a road biking question : - ) Within 2 weeks I realized that my $100 Target bike wasn't going to cut it, and went out and bought myself a $600 Specialized Rockhopper. Yes...this is cheap by 'real biking' standards, but try telling that to my wife (dang near got divorced over it - lol). In a very short time I got hooked on cycling, and wanted a road bike to ride during the week (my trail riding buddies and I only ride on Saturday mornings - most of us are married). Not knowing a whole lot about riding at the time...and working on a limited budget...I bought a Giordano Libero 1.6 road bike off Amazon for about 400 bucks. Though I'd done some reading, and saw many a recommendation that you should purchase as expensive a bike as you can reasonably afford (better frame, better components, etc...), I was more concerned with budget and wasn't sure how long I'd stick with my new 'hobby'. Long story short, I'm hooked. I've all but completely forgotten about golf (my last mistress), and can't get enough of my bike and learning about cycling altogether. I'm constantly on the internet, have 3 cycling magazine subscriptions already, yada, yada, yada. I've been road biking now for about 3 months, and have invested about $500 in component upgrades (lighter Mavic Aksium wheelset, better quality tires, Shimano 105 brakes, clothing, etc.). The more I learn, the more I wish I'd have taken my time and did more research before making a purchase. But I enjoy my bike and it's serving me well. To date, my best ride was 40 miles, averaging 18.2mph (or something like that). Unless work/family get in the way, I generally do two 20 mile rides during the week and a 30 mile ride on Sunday mornings. Ok...so much for being quick. (Sorry)

Let me just get to the question. I've tried to find an answer to this on the internet, but can't find anything that exactly matches the answer I'm trying to get.

I have two questions...and they both pertain to one thing - overall SPEED. I like going fast (or...at least going faster, more efficiently). The Amazon bike I purchased is a 16-speed road bike. I hate when I'm out on the road, peddling my heart out, dang near in the highest gear...and someone comes zooming by me with ease...peddling at about half the cadence I am...and I notice the chain like only halfway down on the rear cassette, in a middle gear. Now obviously, part of the reason is that I only have 8 gears and the riders in my group (or others I see) have mostly 10 gears...but FINALLY...this is what I'm trying to found out:

1.) Can anyone explain to me how gearing (or, the number of gears you have) affects speed? Let me rephrase...I currently have an 8-spd bike, and want to 'upgrade' to a 10-spd. But what I don't understand is how exactly would this benefit me? Sure, I get two extra cogs in the rear (and yes...I'm aware that I'd have to change shifters, etc.), but what exactly does it translate into? Would I necessarily be able to go a little faster as a result? Or just not have to pedal as hard (in a higher gear) to go as fast as I would be in a higher-gear cog on an 8-spd cassette? Aside from many typical answers I've seen while trying to research such an answer (i.e. the rider himself can lose weight, drop weight on the bike, high quality components, right clothing, yada, yada)...I'm just wondering...all that aside, and everything about everything being equal...is there anything specifically about the bike's drivetrain that will make it go faster?

2) The second part of the question is quality of parts. And I almost feel stupid asking this...almost like...which is better, Ford or BMW? In terms of 'quality', we know who the winner is. But my question is more along the lines of this: Whether in a Ford or BMW, both can easily get you up to legal speeds on the road. There might be a difference in quality of ride, but 60MPH is 60MPH and both will get you to where you want to go. Since I submersed myself in the cycling world, I've quickly become familiar with the premium Dura Ace and SRAM Reds, etc, of the world. Unfortunately, my budget just won't allow it. So...the question on QUALITY of parts is...do you honestly feel it plays a difference (again...in overall speed). If I can go at the same speeds using Bike Nashbar or Forte or some other 'cheaper' brand of parts...should it matter? Some of the things I've been seeing from more experienced riders/posters are things like 'clean shifting', or that they will last longer, etc. Which I can definitely understand. But now that I know a whole lot more about bikes/biking, I wonder things like "Ok...I've got this cheap ass bike. Maybe if I had a higher quality bottom bracket, stuff might roll over a lot smoother and faster. Maybe a higher quality crankset will help me. Maybe a bad ass Shimano chain might whip through there quicker." Ya know? Lol.

I am so sorry for the long post. I've become a pretty good rider (in my view, lol) in a short amount of time. I've been riding with guys who do century rides and stuff, and they always compliment me on my riding skills and invite me out for rides. But I'm still learning my way around this maze, and am trying to figure out the best way to go to continue to increase my skills, give me that 'edge', so to speak, and really help me to keep up with better riders, with ease.

Again, I'm new. Right now, I'm just enjoying the sport and exercise of being on my bike. Maybe in the future I'll look at racing, doing crits, or whatever, but right now I'm just a 'serious casual rider'...if that makes any sense. I want to go faster, more efficiently.

How does the number of gears really play into that? And when it really boils down to it, does quality of parts (specifically the drivetrain) really matter?

If you didn't give up halfway through this, thank you very much for listening, and I appreciate any opinions or help you care to offer!!!

I gave up half way through. Well, a little less than halfway.

I think you're asking if gears make you faster. Gears don't make you fast or slow, they just let you pedal at a comfortable cadence (rpm) at a given speed. Your legs make the speed.

There are lots of reasons to upgrade stuff, but this won't make you faster. Cycling takes a long time to get fast. People who are new and think they're fast just don't ride with the right people. Usually their first race cures them of this belief.

I know this because I am slowly graduating from being new and have begun to learn enough to see everything I don't know. You know?

I gotcha. : - ) Makes sense. Thanks for at least getting halfway through. Lol.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/

let me introduce you to...

This website is one of the best references on cycling and it's well worth having a look at articles there on areas you want to understand.

https://sheldonbrown.com/gears.html is a great explanation.

It is really very simple: just ride LOTS! Your own body controls the speed you go. What has continually amazed me is that cycling is all about power, strength, endurance, and EXPLOSIVENESS. If you want to be fast, ride with people who are faster than you (and you'll be very surprised who they are!). I always find it comical on a fast group ride there is invariably someone in their 20s or 30s who takes a look at the age of the riders and incorrectly assumes that it is just a group of out of shape old men; that is until they are dropped by a group of 60+ riders!

Bikes are nice; get the one you like. Unfortunately, you can only gain seconds in a LONG ride with upgrades. After you buy the bike that looks great, and all the clothes you need for all weather occasions and comfort, and all the proper supplements, etc..., it's just you and the wind, or the hill, or the mountain, or the flats.

And you can continue to make gains for a long time.

Okay, I will give a partial answer. I have a 1980 bike, 12 speed, that I rode sporadically for a long time. Couple years back got an up to date road bike with 9 speed cassette. Wondered how much difference it made. Both bikes fit me well. Old bike weighs about 5 pounds more.

Over a completely level, paved loop, I rode twelve miles twice on the old bike. Averaged 1.0 and 1.1 mph less than on the newer bike. My speed was slower mainly due to gearing. The old bike I had one gear that had me spinning a bit too much to be comfortable or slowing down. Or switching up to the next nearest gear was just a bit too tall for me to continue pulling for long.

So bottom line, little other than convenience has improved in general on road bikes. Other than more gears. Brifters are convenient, the old bike had friction shifters. Weight is a bit better, not much of a deal on a level course. Stiffness is a bit better, but the old bike was stiff enough. Brakes are better, but not a huge concern. So more gears makes you faster by being able to keep your cadence and load closer to the optimum range.

Now about quality of parts, well sure that plays into it. Just basic things like feel, durability, reliability. Get too cheap, and bearings and such won't last or have more drag. Lighter wheels are always good to have.

So I don't know, get an older top quality bike and put more gears on it. Get a newer bike of decent quality and ride it. If you are hoping a cheap bike with more gears will get you similar results to a good bike with more gears, well sorry, no it won't.

As stated above, more gears do not make you faster. Here is a picture of a man averaging 30 miles an hour. He has one gear.



The man in the picture had some advice for people who wanted to get faster: "Ride lots." And some more advice re upgrades: "Don't buy upgrades. Ride up grades."

to asnwer you rQ about your gearing - here's whats listed on Amazon for the Men's White Libero - has Cassette: Shimano CS HG30 8 Speed 11-30
Crank: Prowheel Alloy Arms 170mm 42/52
based on this info, you have a full range of gears for just about any ride terrain.

go to sheldon brown;s website - the gear calculator - and get a gear chart done for your bike - I'm used to gear-inches, others use gear development...
try to undertsand what that chart is telling you and you'll go a long way to learning how to use your gears for riding.
Search BF road for a threads on gearing. From those you'll piece together a lot of info which you can apply to your ride.
sounds like you're already 'spinning' gears more than mashing - that's a good start.
Keep spinning, get a few thousand miles into the legs before worying about 'speed'.
The best thing you can do, which doesn;t cost a lot, if anything, is get to ridin with an established group/ride. Be observant, ask questions, watch the good bike handlers, the smooth riders. Read a lot
Looks like you have a serviceable machine - resist upgrading parts - save the money for your next machine. Buy good tires - good doesn;t mean the most expensive.
8 spd - 10 spd
10 spd is current, but the 8 spd you have is fine and covers all you'll need for a while.
10 spd will not make you faster or a better bike handler or a smarter rider.
riding a bike well is a program in self-awareness and patience. learn an appreciation of just riding and being on the bike, don't get consumed by speed.
8 speed is fine, I can still get a nice turn of speed out of my old iron with 6, 7 or 8 spd rears...
and if it all sticks, when you get to be 60+, you'll still feel and act like a 30 something

A friend told me that I seem faster on my vintage 30 pound six speed bike than on my modern lightweight 10 speed... But in reality it's all in how you ride it, not what you're riding. I've never ridden with the GOAT pictured above, but I have ridden with some people who were kicking my butt on their single speed bike...

"I've been riding with guys who do century rides and stuff, and they always compliment me on my riding skills and invite me out for rides."

Don't you want to director your questions to the people with whom you ride? Anonymous posters here aren't going to be able to answer those questions better than the experienced riders you know. Unless you're too embarrassed to ask them, of course.

Yes, that was a long-winded post, and I'm thinking a shorter post would garner more replies. But you're a newbie here, too, as well as to cycling, so it's OK - this time.

The few lines at the bottom of your posting were all you needed, along with, maybe, "I'm a newbie, I have two questions."

"I want to go faster, more efficiently.

"How does the number of gears really play into that? And when it really boils down to it, does quality of parts (specifically the drivetrain) really matter?"

My answers: the number of gears won't matter that much, unless you're racing. There's a reason more is better, though: you get a greater choice when you are trying to get the most efficiency out of your pedaling.

And the quality of parts doesn't matter that much. However, if you pay more, the parts will be lighter, helping you go a little faster, and they'll last longer than less expensive parts. All of which means you should spend as much as you can afford without taking food off the table, or forgoing rent money, or pissing off your wife (too much), rather than trying to save money.

In other words: yes, a Ford will get you to the same place a BMW will. Come on, admit it, you'd rather have a BMW.

Mike - First, welcome!

Bad news up front: You know those guys who effortlessly fly by you? If you switched bikes with them, they'd still effortlessly fly by you. They're fit, and it was a lot of hard work, intelligently directed, that got them there. You won't match them with the time you're putting in. If you're averaging 18 mph on your rides now, though, you're doing quite well.

As for equipment, tires have already been mentioned. Another relatively inexpensive change you can make it the cassette. If the poster above is correct and your current one is a 11-30, you can have your bike shop switch it out for a 12-25. It won't make you faster, but it will reduce the gap between gears and make it easier to maintain your pace over undulating terrain. That cassette range (12-25) is common on ten speed cassettes as well - you just have fewer gaps with the extra cogs.

I just retired from the Army and Army National Guard after almost 37 years of service. My retirement present to me was a high-end bike worth almost $5k (I paid much less - found some great deals). That was in July. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a bike off of Craig's List for $300. It's an eight speed Bianchi steel frame bike made in '97 that needs a bit of TLC to get it back on the road. It weighs a lot more than my main bike. The parts were good quality then, about the relative level of current 105, but not top of the line. The expected effect on my average speed? Less than one mph, if that.

everything about cycling, and I mean everything from clothing to what we eat, pertains to speed.

The best advice ever
It's "Eddy" not "Eddie" like in the picture btw.

Welcome to the forum. I have an expensive 20 speed bike. You could kick my butt in a race.

I sometimes race crits on my old 7 speed bike because I don't want to crash my new 11 speed bike. It doesn't make me any slower. I do use a 12-19 freehub on the seven speed bike so I have small jumps from gear to gear. I just have more easier gears on the 11 speed for when I am riding up hills or at a slower pace. All more gears does is allow for a wider gear range while maintaining small jumps from one gear to the next.

At the level you are riding you aren't going to notice any difference between 8 and 10 speed.

Also at 5,11 202 you are well into the overweight area of the bmi chart. The best investment you could make is working on your diet to loose some weight.

number of gears is not as important as the range of those gears. The only way you could be limited by your gears is if you are spinning out in your top gear and just cant spin faster, but have the strength and energy to do more. If you're spinning out a lot, you could probably just get a new cassette to fix the issue. Most likely, you just need to get stronger.

Having more gears just allows you to pick a gear that lets you pedal at exactly the right cadence you want for any speed. With fewer gears some people might find themselves wishing there were gear in between. I have a 7 speed and a 10 speed bike and don't really find myself wishing for more gears on the 7 speed.

Eddy Merckx also said, "You can't spin big gears if you can't spin small gears." Your running pace is about 90 strides a minute; since that's where your legs work most efficiently, try to use your gears to maintain a pedaling rate of around 90 to 100 rpm.

To keep up a high average speed, you also need to keep your effort level within a small range. The advantage to 10-speed over 9, 9 over 8, etc., is that you have finer gradations between gears for a given overall gear range, which makes it easier to stay within a pedaling rate range of 90 to 100 rpm.

Rather than upgrading more parts, consider buying a pulse monitor. There are plenty of threads here that discuss pulse-based training, but you'll quickly get an idea of what your pulse rate is when you're doing a hard but sustainable effort on the bike. Try to keep your heart rate at about that level, especially going uphill, when it's easy to go too hard and then have to ease off. Amazon has a highly rated pulse monitor, the Omron HR-100C, currently at $35.

This is true, but of limited usefulness. He could be buff and have a low body fat content. I'm 6'2"/195, and borderline overweight according to BMI. BMI is useful for populations, not individuals.

Having said that, Mike, if you've got a bit of pudge, getting rid of it is a cheap way to get faster.

Thank you!

Hey...down and dirty. Thanks for the input! I will take heed...

Thanks for taking the time to explain your experience! I appreciate that. Yeah...it's just time to pay the piper and get my first quality upgrade. (whole new bike) : - )

Boo-yaw. Lol. Thanks. : - )

Thanks. This brings me back down to earth. : - ) Like most things I 'want', I guess I'm just impatient and want it all right away. It's going to take time to get better, and I'm simply going to have to invest it. I'm sure I came off as arrogant, naive, and whatever else...trying to be 'the man' after only riding for 2 or 3 months. Lol. I've just really taken to this in a short amount of time. Never thought I'd like it this much! Thanks for the advice and encouragement.

Yes...I'd rather have the BMW. : - ) I'll definitely keep future posts under 50 words or less, too. : - )

First...CONGRATS ON YOUR RETIREMENT!!! I'm active Air National Guard (prior active Air Force as well). I'm at 18 years, but hope to make a 30-year retirement. : - ) Thanks for the words of advice. Enjoy your new ride!