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what does "get some gears" mean?

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Singlespeed & Fixed Gear "I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer? We are getting soft...As for me, give me a fixed gear!"-- Henri Desgrange (31 January 1865 - 16 August 1940)

what does "get some gears" mean?

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Old 09-30-09 | 11:06 PM
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what does "get some gears" mean?

been hearing it alot from fixed riders...what does it exactly mean?
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Old 09-30-09 | 11:10 PM
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inside joke on ocfixed, means get more then one gear, since fixed gears are only one gear.
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Old 09-30-09 | 11:16 PM
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Get some gears, brah.
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Old 10-01-09 | 12:34 AM
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It's sarcasm. A joke, you see?
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Old 10-01-09 | 06:59 AM
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it means you have been deemed not cool enough to be a part of our "club"
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Old 10-01-09 | 07:03 AM
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Get some gears

It means get yourself a proper bicycle with gears so that I don't have to pay for your knee operations/wheelchairs when riding your single speed (almost always at the wrong cadence and too much strain) renders you a cripple in the future...
P.S. I am 52 ride 20 miles per day across London (on a 15-speed tourer) and see a lot fixed/single speed amateurs new to cycling who are putting their knees etc under too much strain - 90-110 is the right cadence - watch racers, they don't struggle away in the wrong gear...
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Old 10-01-09 | 07:14 AM
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not a very funny or clever joke, imho
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Old 10-01-09 | 07:28 AM
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Old 10-01-09 | 07:31 AM
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who would have thought a cat would have had it FTW on this forum?
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Old 10-01-09 | 08:20 AM
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Old 10-01-09 | 08:57 AM
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Originally Posted by slimlavud
P.S. I am 52 ride 20 miles per day across London (on a 15-speed tourer) and see a lot fixed/single speed amateurs new to cycling who are putting their knees etc under too much strain - 90-110 is the right cadence - watch racers, they don't struggle away in the wrong gear...
masher 4 lyfe brah
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Old 10-01-09 | 09:11 AM
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Stupid. I hate d-hole idiots who have nothing better to do than yell dumb $h1t at people while we're all out just trying to enjoy ourselves. I look at ANY bikers as comrades.
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Old 10-01-09 | 09:37 AM
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Originally Posted by destikon
Stupid. I hate d-hole idiots who have nothing better to do than yell dumb $h1t at people while we're all out just trying to enjoy ourselves. I look at ANY bikers as comrades.
Maybe they do look at him as a comrade. Maybe that's just their way of saying hello?

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Old 10-01-09 | 01:10 PM
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Originally Posted by ADSR
Maybe they do look at him as a comrade. Maybe that's just their way of saying hello?

Sure maybe.
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Old 10-01-09 | 01:32 PM
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It means race the fool who said it. Then when you get up close say, maybe you should gets some gears brah
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Old 10-01-09 | 01:33 PM
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It's people being small minded and childish, usually a cause to ignore or throw a swordfish at them.
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Old 10-01-09 | 01:43 PM
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Originally Posted by slimlavud
It means get yourself a proper bicycle with gears so that I don't have to pay for your knee operations/wheelchairs when riding your single speed (almost always at the wrong cadence and too much strain) renders you a cripple in the future...
P.S. I am 52 ride 20 miles per day across London (on a 15-speed tourer) and see a lot fixed/single speed amateurs new to cycling who are putting their knees etc under too much strain - 90-110 is the right cadence - watch racers, they don't struggle away in the wrong gear...
yeah there are lots of guys in chicago riding 3+ ratios and i keep telling them to gear down...thinking of stepping down from 2.75 since spinning is fun and i'm still plenty fast
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Old 10-01-09 | 02:17 PM
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"Get some gears" is an interesting phrase in that, although there's no definitive origin, there is a likely derivation. Before we get to that, let's get some of the fanciful proposed derivations out of the way. The phrase isn't related to the well-known antipathy between fixed and derailleur using riders. Nor is the phrase in any sense literal, i.e. it doesn't record an incident where a rider spontaneously gained gearing that was beforehand not present. Some bicycles have represented the appearance of gaining gears, but this is usually the result of some complex machination as an internally geared hub or dingle cog. Impromptu gear change has also been recorded, but there is no record of bikes spontaneously gaining gears. Not that we need to study English velocipetal records for that - it's plainly implausible.
One supposed origin is that the phrase derives from mythology. The first cog-driven "safety bicycles" developed an issue whereby cog teeth would sometimes break, causing the apparent gain of gearing inches due to their new ratio. Sheldon Brown, who often took the form of his familiar - an eagle - supported this notion of a phantom gear change with his own anecdotal claims. Well, some evidence would be nice. There doesn't appear to be any to support this notion.

It has also been suggested that a rider might carry additional cogs on their person for cases such that a new gearing ratio is necessary. This is a widely repeated tale. It got a new lease of life with the e-mail message "Life in the 1500s", which began circulating on the Internet in 1999. Here's the relevant part of that:
I'll describe their saddle bags a little. You've heard of the small tool bags riders carry under their saddles. Usually just an innertube and a patch kit, maybe a multitool. They were the only place for keeping things on a longer ride. So all the rider's tools and various cycling sundries were stored in there. When the rider found he needed a higher or lower gear ratio for a climb or descent, he would "get some gears" from his saddle bag.
This is nonsense of course. It hardly needs debunking but, lest there be any doubt, let's do that anyway. In order to believe this tale we would have to accept that those cyclists told to "get some gears" rode only tensioner-equipped freewheel bikes, which, of course, they don't. Even accepting that bizarre idea, for a rider to reach into his saddle bag and remove a brand new free-wheel mounted cog every time he encountered an intimidating grade would be ridiculous.

Another suggestion is that 'get some gears' comes from a version of the French word 'girouget', meaning gear. Again, no evidence. If the phrase were just 'gear', or even if there also existed a French word 'getougir', we might be going somewhere with this one. As there isn't, let's pass this by.

There's a similar phrase originating from the North of England - 'hang a cog'. No one has gone to the effort of speculating that this is from mythic reports of cog teeth chipping off, or gears fabricating themselves out of nothingness. It's just a rather expressive phrase giving a graphic impression of changing one's gear ratio, i.e. 'get some gears'.

The much more probable source of 'get some gears' is the prosaic fact that, in the hilly streets of early 18th century England, steep grades would often make a rider wish they had an easier gear to retreat towards. The gears didn't fall from the sky, but the sight riders attacking the grades more efficiently made have made it appear as such. Jonathan Swift described such an event in his satirical poem 'A Description of a Bicycle Race', first published in the 1710 collection of the Tatler magazine. The poem was a denunciation of contemporary London society and its meaning has been much debated. While the poem is metaphorical and doesn't describe a specific race, it seems that, in describing ease with which some riders ascend hills, Swift was referring to an occurrence that his readers would have been well familiar with.
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Old 10-01-09 | 03:01 PM
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^^ wow. impressive.
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Old 10-01-09 | 04:25 PM
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You put entirely too much effort into that.
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Old 10-01-09 | 04:50 PM
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Originally Posted by slimlavud
It means get yourself a proper bicycle with gears so that I don't have to pay for your knee operations/wheelchairs when riding your single speed (almost always at the wrong cadence and too much strain) renders you a cripple in the future...
P.S. I am 52 ride 20 miles per day across London (on a 15-speed tourer) and see a lot fixed/single speed amateurs new to cycling who are putting their knees etc under too much strain - 90-110 is the right cadence - watch racers, they don't struggle away in the wrong gear...
wtf 90-110 for commuting? i thought if you were spinning 60-90 you were doing good.
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Old 10-01-09 | 05:37 PM
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Originally Posted by slimlavud
It means get yourself a proper bicycle with gears so that I don't have to pay for your knee operations/wheelchairs when riding your single speed (almost always at the wrong cadence and too much strain) renders you a cripple in the future...
P.S. I am 52 ride 20 miles per day across London (on a 15-speed tourer) and see a lot fixed/single speed amateurs new to cycling who are putting their knees etc under too much strain - 90-110 is the right cadence - watch racers, they don't struggle away in the wrong gear...
Ahhh...so that explains this.
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Old 10-01-09 | 09:59 PM
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Originally Posted by Graphite_Brawle
You put entirely too much effort into that.
You'd probably be surprised.
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