Nearly there with this winter singlespeed build. Just need to sort out a gear to run. I think the ‘norm’ seems to be 46×18. However I’m thinking this will be a bit to hard on long club rides. I know I need my 39×23 on some hills, when zig zagging the Chilterns.
So any other ideas? my latest is 42×18 because thats close to the old 52/42 x – 12/19 gears we used to do everything on.
I’ll be looking at a gear to average 17.9 over 65 miles.

46-18 would be way too easy and slow I think. I guess it depends where you live though. Personally if I had to go any lower than 48-16 (what I’m currently on) I would rather have gears. I think my average speed is about 14mph with this and I can get up all the hills round here but I’m only in the east midlands, don’t think any of the climbs would be bigger than 100m if that.

Thinking of going up to 52-16/48-14 soon as it’s starting to feel a bit easy 🙂

That’s more like track gearing! Love your knees and learn to spin!

You will do a lot of spinning out at 42×18 I’d have thought – I run 42×16 most of the time and 18mph is towards the top end of “comfortable pedalling”.

Are you talking freewheel or fixed? That will make a significant difference too.

48:17 for me in the Peaks although I’m selective about where I take it!
Can do 10-12% hills on it and it’ll still do up to about 30mph on the flat.

46:18 might be a tad easy, but I reckon you would be able to keep up with the guys doing 18mph as long as you can spin reasonably well.

http://software.bareknucklebrigade.com/rabbit.applet.html

this should help ?

I ride 49×16 for my commuter bike and it’s ever so slightly too big, I’d say 48×17 would be good as you can spin it ok but still get some speed on it, depending on the worst hills you’ll be riding…

have you tried picking a similar ratio on your road bike and not changing gear ?

edit: just found an old pic to remind myself – I did manchester to blackpool on 48×16 so maybe my perception is skewed. gear choice is dependant on mileage, how bad the hills are and leg strength…

I don’t know if anyone my patch. A normal run will include three consecutive climbs of Ivinghoe Beacon from three different points. And a fair few other Chilterns climbs, including the Crong which is a well known regional hill climb hill. 39×23 normally has me wheel spinning in the weton this climb.
I suppose one way is to buy a selection of Stronglight chainsets as they are only slightly cheaper than freewheels.

http://software.bareknucklebrigade.com/rabbit.applet.html

this should help ?

Very nifty link indeed! Although I’m not sure how necessary it is to list RPMs up to 240 😯

It’s for me. 😉

Is it better to push a hard gear or spin an easier gear?

I get to a certain point and feel like Im spinning out or its getting to easy so always chage to a harder gear. Is this right or wrong? Should I spin faster?

I like that!

So when I set off the 30mph flashy “slow down” sign, my little legs are buzzing at 160rpm….. Feels more than that!

DrP

I wanna be crazy-legs; with my girlie compact in the 11 tooth sprocket, I could be doing the best part of about 48mph on the flat spinning out like him according to that chart, I’m such a wimp 😳