jefnvk

Pretty much what the title asks: is there any benefit to having higher gearing than what you can comfortably ride unloaded on flat good roads on a touring bike?

After getting in a couple hundred miles on my latest touring build, I have realized I am in my highest gearing quite a bit in said conditions. It is 42x14 on 26" tires, which comes in about 78GI, running comfortably around the 17-18MPH range. I can't see myself regularly going faster than that, and to be honest, once loaded, feel that is an absolute best case.

Is any practical use case that I am not considering (i.e., pedaling downhill) that it would be worth a bit higher gearing, or any other advantages from having higher gearing that what I am currently getting use out of? There are a few cassette options where I could knock the high gearing down to 11-12 (98-90GI, respectively) and either not change or slightly improve my bottom end, just not sure if it is worth increasing the rather favorable spacing between gears I have currently.

fietsbob

95 gear inches has always been sufficient, 50:14 , 700-35 wheel.

Personally not trying to work the down hills, that's been my recovery time after the climb.







.....

TimothyH

Heavy motor vehicle traffic is one place where a high gear can come in handy. It is nice to be able to clear a particularly narrow section of road quickly when motor vehicles are pressuring.

Its a corner case to be sure but I have such a section on one of my regular routes - a road descends through a large residential development and narrows approaching a bridge over a creek. Motorists merge as the road narrows and I need to assert myself and take the lane. It is nice to be able to run this section at high speed.


-Tim-

boomhauer

Yes! i would get as high of a gear as practically possible.

It is very useful if you are a slow slow cadence peddler, as I am.

Every five minutes, or so, I stand on the pedals and pedal slow slow to move my back around and take pressure off my behind.

I've always toured this way so it is a consideration.

tyrion

Lightly pedalling 120 gear inches with a massive tailwind is one of life's simple pleasures.

jamawani 

I've always loved my 48-38-28 chain ring - with a 13-32 in back.
Less than 1-to-1 for hills (28/32); almost 4-to-1 for downhill runs (48/13).
Which is way better than 42/14.

But I prefer hilly roads with rough surfaces, too.

IK_biker

I benefit from higher gearing in 3 cases:

- keeping leg muscles warm and supple during long (cold/rainy) downhills by being able to at least partially exert some actual pressure on the pedals @ highish RPMs
- staying warm in high tailwinds by being able to actually exert some pressure on the pedals
- in heavy motorized traffic as someone already pointed out, by being able to accelerate on downhills to quickly clear a treacherous section.

This is why my touring bike has a 18-101 gear-inch range, and my distance bike has a 20-107 one.

HTupolev

Even if you're not planning on pedaling hard, being able to keep some pressure on the pedals can be comfortable when going fast.

KevinF

As mentioned before, massive tailwinds are a good reason for high gears.

If you're on a road that's following a river downstream -- you can easily be pushing a big gear for a long time.

I've been on multiple descents that are easily a half-hour in length, or that get really really cold. Being able to actively pedal to stay warm or just keep your legs moving is nice. Otherwise you hit the next climb / flat with cold legs... trying to coax them back into action can suck.

jefnvk

OK, thanks, some good considerations here that I had not come up with! Just gotta weigh those out, against whether losing an option from the lower end is worth a bit bigger option.

I'm in this situation because of my own stupidity, unfortunately. The cassette this one replaced actually went down to 11t, not 13t as I had thought when making the decision on a high gearing of 14t. I would have went to a 13t or 12t at least to begin with (11t was always too high) had I realized that.

Thunder Horse

If you live in flatland and you wish to train for an event that has hills, then high gear training can simulate hill climb training.

jefnvk

How does that work?

Trakhak

The smaller cassette sprockets wear proportionally faster than larger sprockets, so if you're in the smaller sprockets most of the time, expect to have to replace those sprockets or the cassette more often.

And, to answer your question about how simulated hill training works, it takes a pretty high gear to simulate the effort of low-cadence hill climbing on level ground.

manapua_man

I like having higher gearing available for getting a little more speed wherever I can if I'm on something of a schedule. Or if there's a really strong tailwind. Or if I run into a particularly nasty stretch of road and want to get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

nickw

What about when you get more fit? Not suggesting you are not, but having ability to crank 2-3 mph faster if required when you have the legs for it may be a good thing.

jefnvk

Yep, there is always that, although I was kind of more filing that under "when it happens, then I'll have all the rationale I need to go change it".

Also, it is an old MTB conversion that I put together for more rough/dirt/two-track road touring than anything. I've got my 27" road bike that goes up to a 52x14 (101GI) that is far more likely to be ridden if I am in a go fast situation.

52telecaster

Jeff, I top out at 90 inches. Frankly I rarely us that. Coasting is really fun and I like to do it a lot. Also I read a study that says that 11 and 12 tooth rings r significantly less efficient because of the tight radius of the chain around them. It was a German study that seemed pretty efficacious, if that's a word.

79pmooney

One thing I have done often on cassettes is run a two tooth jump to the second highest cog, like 12, 14, etc. Gives me that big gear that is sometimes useful and brings the rest down to more usable.

Ben

djb

I generally like a high of where I can pedal up to about 50-55kph or a bit more. Two of my touring bikes have a high of 103g.i and for loaded touring, this is perfectly fine for me. Slightly higher is nicer on a lightly or non loaded bike, one of my other bikes has a 50/12 with 28 slicks that is about 111 g.i. and that I can spin out to about 65 nearly 70kph.
When I say spin out, I mean around 125rpm.

Even the 103gi bikes are high enough geared that in the handful of times I have had big tailwinds, pedaling is not an issue at 30-40kph which is the most I have ever been able to hold, and even then for only short periods of time.

and as I always add, for what its worth, the fastest I have ever been on a bicycle has been on these 100-111gi bikes, well past their gearing, so its all a moot point about going really really fast, and more about using judgement for the given road conditions and wind.

Tourist in MSN

I used to use a road triple with a 52T big ring on my derailleur touring bikes, but have changed that to 46T big ring. But with an 11 and 12T for my smallest sprockets on my cassette, that still gives me higher gears than I would ever use on the flat and level with typical windage.

The 20 mile downhill to Cumberland on the GAP from the sub-continental divide was really great with my two highest gears. And the downhill on Going to the Sun road with those really high gears was pretty fun. And the 25 (plus) long shallow downhill on the south end of the George S Mickelson trail in South Dakota in my highest two gears. Plus lots of shorter downhills too, but they are less memorable than the ones I cited. I like to drop my cadence and drop my pedalling effort on such downhills, but I like to continue to pedal instead just coast. Pedaling puts more pressure on my feet and takes some pressure off the part of me that is in contact with my saddle, thus I would rather pedal than coast on those long shallow downhills, especially the ones that last for a good amount of time.

And when I stop pedaling for more than several minutes, my leg muscles start to get stiff. Going to the Sun Road, I was doing a lot of pedaling for that reason, although I did a lot of braking too, enough braking that I stopped twice to let my rims cool.

There were several times I spun out with my Rohloff bike in Iceland last summer on long shallow downhills, but with the Rohloff I would have had to raise my lowest gears to raise the highest gears and I valued the lower gears more than the high gears. Thus, I just grumbled a bit more than I normally would on a downhill about not having the gearing that I have on my derailleur bikes. (I normally do not grumble at all on such downhills.)

While I rarely use those high gears, when I use them at those higher speeds I end up using them for quite a few memorable miles.

bradtx

jefnvk, My primary touring bike has a ~108 GI top and the beater/touring bike has a ~103 GI top. More than I can spool up to max cadence on level ground, but not quite enough to prevent spinning out on a good down hill run. Of course the effort to climb the hill prior to descending probably makes a difference.

I checked the touring bike's gear position from my last ride and if I hadn't changed it since, I rode into the driveway using ~62 GI... light load.

Brad

FBinNY 

Forgive any repeats, I didn't read most posts.

I always set up my bikes with 1-2 gears above my normal flat road cruising gear. That gives me something to use when I'm feeling my oats, or want to take advantage of a tailwind or gentle downslope.

It's also an advantage when I want to dial up the speed a bit like if I need to make up some time to catch a ferry or outrun a thunderstorm.

LeeG

Jefnvk, I don't see much utility with gears above 95" for touring. Last tour I had a 93" top gear and that was really only useful spinning at 30mph+ downhill when I was coasting in an aero tuck at 25mph.

11 tooth cog cassettes pretty much eliminated the need for big rings. Personally I'd rather have 12-13 teeth for small cogs.

BigAura

For me while touring I've never wished for a higher gear than what I had...
BUT I've DEFINITELY wished for a lower one!

I'd always optimize for low-side, let the high side fall wherever.

hueyhoolihan

i've been advocating lower max gear inches for quite a while for touring. so i agree. the only time you'll notice it, IME (and i do have some experience with this while touring) is when everybody either gets between a 15-20 mph tailwind or a long 2-4 percent descent. then they can pull away. if that's of any concern. i know this because on my last 9 day tour i met up with more than a few touring cyclists and for the most part did not lament my mid 70's GI max (pulled the two lowest cogs off of the 8-speed cassette so as to make my drivetrain a 1x6).