Do you have "gear fear"?

I use the gear calculator to make decisions about my gears for 6 of the 12 bikes in the garage.

http://www.gear-calculator.com/#c

For my main road bike,

1) 50/12 seems to be as high as I dare to go, as it is, I may use it in every ride but just for a few minutes, it gives me a speed of almost 30 mph @90 rpm.

2) 30/27 just recently replaced a 25t with the 27t. I am hopping that is all I need to hit those 15-20% hills during the REDBUD ride next spring, if not enough I will be looking into a 30 or 32t next.

3) Base 39/14-15-16-17.

4) Climbing 30/19-21-24.

5) see 2)

BTW I can run all nine gears in the back from each of the 3 chainrings without problem. Narrow, bushing-less chain gives me lateral flexibility for that.

As a beginner when I was a kid I was never taught about gears. I just figure out that if you shift the lever it became easier to pedal but you pedaled really fast. As an adult I don't worry much about them. I'm a bit older school and I ride a 90's Trek road bike with a 7 speed cassette. Usually starting with an 11 or a 12 and working up from there. No special or custom cassettes. On the front I have a double, no granny gear. It's pretty flat where I live so I never need to shift out of the big ring. So much so that I don't even have a front derailur on the bike. If an emergency arose where i need the smaller ring I would just kick it off with my foot :-)

All you need is 7 gears. 10 speed cassettes have multiple gear combos that are the same so it's kind of a waste. Is there really that much difference between say a 13 tooth cog and a 14? It's barely noticable. Let your legs do the work and not the gears, i say.

My road bike is geared 50/34 with a 13-23 8-speed cassette in the back (13-14-15-16-17-19-21-23). In 50/13, I can easily hit 35 MPH at whatever RPMs that requires. My lowest gear is 34/23. Coming from a singlespeed MTB background, 34/23 is plenty low enough for any hill/mountain.

I used to ride a singlespeed mountain bike, before the fork blew out and I got a great deal on a race-ready bike from a teammate. That bike came with 3x9 XTR. Now it's a 1x9 with a 32 chainring and a 12-26 road cassette out back. Once again, that's a plenty low enough gear for me.

My third bike is a fixed gear that I built up with Craigslist parts. I use it to train (mostly to smooth out my pedal circle) and to commute. That's geared 36/16, and it's easily the most fun bike that I own.

Tex

Cycling is NOT about gears, it is about pedaling. The gear you choose is the one that allows you to maintain two different factors.... 1) is pedal cadence, maintaining a consistent cadence of 70+ rpm and, 2) pedal pressure... Your pedal pressure should be maintained at a moderate pressure.

You use the gears to maintain the balance in those two factors.

If the gear range is too low, and you start to pedal too fast.... You will explode. If the gears are too low,

you will blow up your knees. The pedaling will dictate what you can do on the bike... Not the gears!

Soccerref

All you need to know is to use the gears that you can pedal easily at 70-90 rpms. Use only the lower half of the gears with the smallest chain ring and the upper half with the largest.

To use your own words, "serious cyclists" don't worry about what gear they are in. They worry about what cadence they are pedaling at. If you go around all the time worrying about what gear you're in, you'll never get anywhere! Kudos to Old Hippie & SoccerRefToo.

A) I get on the bike.

B) I start pedaling.

C) When it becomes just "too easy" I up-shift.

D) When it starts to become difficult, I downshift.

Gee...that was hard. BTW...my touring road bike has no gear indicators. The shifters are Shimano Dura-Ace Bar-End shifters.