Most bikers find that they pedal most efficiently around 80 RPMs. While all of these scenarios aren’t a problem for a leisurely ride around the neighborhood, it’s a big problem for a mountain biker! You’ll be spending lots of time on a variety of terrains.įrom flats to steep climbs and descents, these all require a different gear for optimum performance. Mountain bikes, on the other hand, are equipped to handle these situations. Of course, this issue only exists on single speeds. This is known as “spinning out”, where you hit a maximum number of RPMs. On downhill sections, you would find that you quickly reach a point where you quite literally can’t pedal fast enough to accelerate the bike any further. So even if your leg strength doesn’t fail you, your balance may! A really low cadence, or revolutions per minute (RPM), can make balance very tricky on steep uphills. Even if you did make it, your legs would be really worn out from the effort!īecause pedaling uphill would be so hard on one gear, you wouldn’t be able to turn the pedals very fast. You’d probably end up hopping off the bike and needing to walk it to the top. While you might be just fine riding around on the flat ground, climbing a hill of any size is going to be very tough! Let’s say you had a mountain bike with only a single gear i.e. Gear ratios matter because they act as a force multiplier.
#Giant farrago 4 full
That means that it now takes two full rotations of the front chainring to turn the rear wheel once. For 20 teeth up front and 40 in the back, the ratio is inverted and now becomes one to two (1:2).
However, let’s take a look at what happens when the order is swapped. Meaning that for each full rotation of your front chainring, the rear cog will perform two full rotations. Let’s say that you’re using 40 teeth up front and 20 in the back. Where things get interesting are when you start changing this ratio. That would mean that for each rotation of the front chainring, the rear cog would spin exactly one full turn as well. If both had 20 teeth, then this would be a one to one ratio between the two. Think of this as simply the number of teeth on the front chainring compared to the number of teeth on the rear cog. The key to how hard it is to pedal boils down to gear ratios. Last but not least, as the chainring spins it causes the rear gear to rotate via the chain.Īs the rear gear turns so does the rear wheel and you’re off and riding! Without a chain connecting the two gears, your pedals would spin freely and the bike wouldn’t move. Because the cranks are connected to the chainring, they cause the chainring to spin. Now that you understand the gears on the bike, let’s cover how they actually work together!Īs your feet push on the pedals, this causes the crank arms to rotate. Thus, a bike with two front chainrings and 10 cogs in its rear cassette would have a total of 20 gears. The number of gears on your bike is as simple as multiplying the number of front chainrings by the number of cogs in the rear cassette. Each intermediate cog will have an increasing number of teeth that falls inside this range. Whereas the larger number refers to the number of teeth on the largest cog in the grouping. The smaller first number refers to how many teeth are on the smallest cog in the cassette. Something like “11-42T” or “10-50T” are examples of what these ranges could look like. When looking at the specs for a cassette, you’ll notice that it will have a range listed. This rear grouping of gears forms the cassette. In the rear, you will probably have anywhere from seven to twelve gears (also known as cogs). Common sizes include but are not limited to 30T or 42T. These chainrings will have sizes that are referred to by their number of teeth.
Older bikes will probably have three chainrings up front, while more modern bikes often have one to two. On the front, you’ll have anywhere from one to three large chainrings. Let’s start with what your bike has on it.
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