gear ratio
 

Just curious what everyone is running for gearing. I run a 51x17. Mostly flat rural roads and average about 16 mph. I usually have a couple of stop signs and some wind.

It varies for me, but lower than that gear, because I like to maintain a higher cadence. So I've got 46x17 on one bike and 43x16 on another bike. Your cadence with that gearing at 16 mph will be only 68 rpm, assuming a 700x23c rear tire.

Found it to be very ride and climbing dependent:
- For approx 20-30 mile rides and 2000 ft elevation gain rides, my 50x17 was okay. Was able to do a 60 mile ride with that setup
- For 3000 ft elevation gain rides, went to a 47x19, and was still difficult
- Finally switched to a 42x19, specifically for 4000+ ft elevation gain rides
(likely staying with my White Industries Dos Eno 17/19 freewheel and the 47t tooth chainring for most of my riding, except for major mountain climbing where I’ll use the 42t)

I run a 46/17 with a 700x38 for 74.6 gear inches & about 90rpm@19mph. Works good for the local conditions. Spin out at 160rpm for some fast downs. Kick out 45 rpm & a pile-o-watts for the steepest hill I'm able to climb near my house. (But can still do it.)

Gearing is very individual based on locality & individual fitness. I'm not sure crowd sourcing a bunch of data points clustering around some average of around 70 gear inches really is going to mean much other than "most single-speed riders ride at or about 70 gear inches."

I'm running a 25c tire. I usually use the fixed gear for short after work rides.

So that still works out to about a 68 rpm cadence at 16 mph. If you geared down to 51x19, you'd have a cadence of 76 rpm, which is about where I'm at.

I will try that. I have an 18 I will try that then maybe order a 19

23x6 for me, Thinking of going 24x6.

52/14 for sorta hilly Atlanta. I know - seems backwards. But doing group rides mandated a bigger gear to keep up on the fast flats (and slight downhills).

Wow ! I didn't even run that high of a gear when I raced on the track. 😲

i don't single speed much, but just set up an UnseemlyRoller with 44t x 18t free (and the fixed a 17t) ~ I've not ridden fixed yet with it, as I'm making sure I have it debugged before I do what I don't know.

my 2spd kick back(on an '84 Miyata OneThousand), i think i set it up with like a 40t x 20t in the 1:1. Then when I kick back I think S-A goes like 1:1.38 ? I could google it, but I need to get back to work...... we're getting layoff announcements today. yay......:crash:

I've never understood why people like to slog along slowly in a mammoth gear on a fixed-gear bike on the road. For fixed-gear road riding, I've been using a 72-inch gear since I got my first track bike, in 1964. I believe that that's about the same as the Brits used for most of their fixed-gear riding in the 1950's. I got very good at spinning while training with my teammates, who were all riding road bikes.

Auto industry ?

yup.
since I started working for The Ford’s Family 20+ years ago, we’ve been having layoffs. (How’s there anybody left!?!)

being in the pension program the targeting laser has been swinging closer and closer… at least so I think!🤔


ps- and this came today!! Hahaha

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...9c1388eab.jpeg

Who said anything about going "slowly"? ;-) The bike with the 99 gear inches is a lot of fun on our "fast days" (relative term, we're all old guys) - the mid-week morning ride; a 20-mile loop with about 1,200' of elevation gain/loss. Those rides are just over 22 mph. But yeah, if I rode that bike a lot - for other than that quick blast in the mornings, I'd much rather be in the 70-80 Gi range.

By my calculation your cadence is 75 in that gear at 22 mph, which is not very high. Personally, I'd rather be at a cadence of at least 90 when I'm trying to push hard, which works out to about 83 gi at that speed. Do you guys ride in a paceline, taking turns at the front, or are you in the wind all the time ?

I completely agree. 90-95 is my sweet spot. 22 is the avg. There are some sections (one long one) that require peddling at 32++. We keep a mostly organized line for that ride - taking turns at the front. Because I'm the only one on a single speed, I try to minimize the disruption... like spinning out and slowing down the line - well, the part behind me ;-)

My knees hurt just thinking about that gearing!

4616 on relatively flat terrain. Optin is 42/16 which I may swap to since I moved.

I heave never experimented with the front chain ring. Currently, 51 / 17. flat roads but wind from the lake Erie. I'm right of the shore in rural area.

Depending on which bike, between 65-70 gear inches.
42/18 with a 50c tire.
44/17 with a 32c tire.

44x17 for me, so 69.5" at 30mm tires. That puts my sweet spot at 18mph, and up to 20.5 is comfortable.

I rode a 200k Tuesday with ~4k feet of elevation, with a tailwind all day. I can manage 150rpm/30mph for a brief period on a descent, and I was at that limit several times. On the other end, I had to dismount and walk one short steep hill, and I slogged up a few others. On some of the tailwind flats, gearing was limiting my speed. Overall, I think my gearing was a pretty good compromise.

I guess I'm an outlier - I'm not the fastest rider these days and I'm OK with that, I have a 17% grade on the road into the neighborhood, and I don't like lugging in low RPM, so I've been rather happy with a 38/18 on a 700C wheel. It does mean I'm spinning a bit going down that 17% grade, but it's not an impossible task.

I'm a big fan of "medium gear" -- being in the vicinity of 72 gear-inches but not exceeding it. It's a good compromise between speed and the ability to climb hills without stalling. On my bike, it's currently 44/16 with a 26" tire for 71-ish gear inches.

My first fixed gear was a Kilo TT I owned for a brief period of time. I tried it out and just didn't think I liked riding fixed. IIRC it was geared something like 75"-80". Ended up selling it after not too long (really regretting that, thinking about it now :lol:)

It wasn't until a few years later that I found some old track hubs, built some wheels around them, and converted a road frame in to a porteur bar cruiser. This time I decided to go for a much chiller ~70" 44x17 because this bike was just going to be for riding rail trails and I ended up liking that gearing a lot.

It's pretty much flat where I live and for the most of my rides have just a light wind. So a single speed bike might be OK. Sometimes I only use 2 of my 21 speeds (9 of which are redundant), 62 and 70 gear inches. So 66 gear inches would be my choice if I had to lock it in on my 34 lb comfort bike with it's bolt upright riding position.

The gear ratio on my SS's depends on the type of riding I'm doing and what cadence I want to spin that day.

I live in rolling terrain in what the local real estate types have taken to calling The Lakelands of South Carolina. When I rode ss mountain bikes on the area's trails (they're a lot of fun!) I ran 34x18 (edited for accuracy!), yielding around a 48-in gear on the 2.1-in Panaracer Fire tires I used to use.

For fixed-gear I've been primarily running around 70-71 gear inches on the road since 1998 or so. It was 48x18 on my old Bianchi Pista, 45x17 on my beat-but-sweet old Gitane TdF, and 42x16 on the Peugeot PR-10, Falcon San Remo, '71 Raleigh Competition and the custom Mercian. When I started adding fire roads to the equation I fitted a larger cog on the other side of the hub, typically around 63 inches. I think I rode just about every dirt road in this county and a bunch of them in neighboring counties on a 42x18 on 28mm tires.

My current all-road mad scientist bike is a 50-year-old Raleigh Competition with 35mm tires, a Surly Dingle fixed cog and a White Industries Dos Eno freewheel on the other. Combined with 42/44T chainrings, I get 70-in pavement and 60-in gravel fixed gear options, or I can flip the wheel and have a 60-in general noodling and a 52-in mild singletrack option for coasting.

I have family that had a really nice house on lake Murray. Nice area.

I'm about an hour and change west - our local Lake Greenwood is fed by the same Saluda River. What isn't so well known is how well the rolling terrain can work with a fixed-gear. The beauty of Greenwood County is that there are NO major interstates here, lots of quiet-ish roads if you know where to look. The local tourism/Chamber of Commerce types have perhaps mercifully missed exploiting cycle tourism - then again, it gets hotter than the hinges of hell in the summer ....

In the fall and winter, the local mtb guys used to ride all the Parsons Mountain area trails and had strong ties to SORBA. I haven't checked in on that scene since 2008 or so, but there used to be LARGE contingent of ss mtb riders in the area.