revtothelimit - motorbike forum

You don't need that many stacks of gears to get lots of ratios. One cluster can do up to four ratios...two together can do up to 16...four lots of four...and so on.

Not all of those will be useful and some will be reverse. It may not be possible to actually make all of them work for mechanical reasons either. But you can see that lots of ratios is possible.

Edit : the reason I previously said three and not four is that the fourth ratio is just the whole unit - housing and all - going around as one lump. So its probably fairer to say three ratios.

I do wonder how many gears a bicycle actually needs, I had bikes with the Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub, and after having a single speed bike they were amazing, I then had a 5 speed derailleur bike, this was a benefit over the 3 speed, but I used to use, top, middle and bottom, a 10 speed just gave you a higher top gear. I think you only need 5 widely spaced gears, but because of the way derailleurs work you have to have a load of gears in between to make gear changes possible.

Le_Fromage_Grande wrote: Thu Dec 24, 2020 10:44 am I do wonder how many gears a bicycle actually needs, I had bikes with the Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub, and after having a single speed bike they were amazing, I then had a 5 speed derailleur bike, this was a benefit over the 3 speed, but I used to use, top, middle and bottom, a 10 speed just gave you a higher top gear. I think you only need 5 widely spaced gears, but because of the way derailleurs work you have to have a load of gears in between to make gear changes possible.

That depends where you ride and what you're riding on.

I can pretty much say that every time i go out i'll use the top and bottom of my cassette and most of the ones in the middle. How many i could get away with dropping in the middle though, i'm not quite sure.

weeksy wrote: Thu Dec 24, 2020 10:47 am
That depends where you ride and what you're riding on.

I can pretty much say that every time i go out i'll use the top and bottom of my cassette and most of the ones in the middle. How many i could get away with dropping in the middle though, i'm not quite sure.

That's true, it also depends on how you ride, when I used to use a clockwork bike for MTB I probably used 5 gears, but I'm not someone who's that bothered about my pedalling cadence, and now I have an EMTB the motor makes gear selection less important as the motor adjusts how much power it puts in according to pressure on the pedals. (I've ended up riding in a lower gear than I used to because the motor seems to like a faster cadence than I used to do)

I find my self more and more attracted to a BTR - not that I could use it properly

Interesting high pivot and chain tensioning system there.

The LBS had a few high pivot and idler gear bikes from a less well known brand a few years ago, everyone that rode it raved about the rear suspension performance and how well the bike went over bumps (rear travel was diagonally backwards and up rather than just up apparently) but as it wasn’t a well known boutique brand and wasn’t made from burnt toast and horse hair I don’t think they sold too many. Interesting that Trek are now looking at it.

Moser.


Big Mig.

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/bike-chec ... -2021.html

AS it's Trek month on the forum... i've got the new Fuel EX to view.

That is very very good looking and I bet it works brilliantly.

They could have quite easily closed up that space above the BB with a door/cover on the non drive side, and it would have been the perfect size for a tube & inflator.

That's not an ugly Ebike !

^ that is actually a nice looking bike

Shame they can't do anything about the riders

'floating brake on the CUBE'

Secrets lie within Loic Brunis bike

Gamux run a VERY different frame, including a Pinion gear system.

weeksy wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 8:18 am

Gamux run a VERY different frame, including a Pinion gear system.

I've just spent two minutes trying to figure out how that works, where the shock goes...I have a head cold, that's my excuse.