"Guy Goldich" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Does anyone have the formula for calculating gear-inches?
Years ago, Bicycling mag would publish a gear-inches chart for each bike they reviewed--a grid
with front & rear gearing along the top and side
with
Quoted message said:the gear-inches in the center.
I'd like to make a gear-inches chart for my new bike but don't have the formula. My tires are
700c x 23.
That arcane number, which remains a useful number only because we are all conversant with it, is the
equivalent highwheeler size to your geared bike.
Get that by dividing the rear number of teeth into the front and multiplying by the nominal wheel
size, e.g., 52/14*27=100. Put another way, pushing a
52/14 is the equivalent of riding a 100 inch highwheeler bike.
That sort of calculation is very easily done in a spreadsheet. In fact it uses such rudimantary
spreadsheet skills that I use it as a beginner's example for learning spreadsheet techniques.
Put the front chainwheel teeth in a row, let's say c5 is "50", d5 is "40" and e5 i s"30". Then run
your rear sizes down a column, such that b6 is "12", b7 is "13", b8 is "14" etc etc.. Enter the
wheel nominal size in the corner at b5.
Enter this in cell c6: +c$5/$b6*$b$5 copy that to the remaining cells in your array and hit the
F9 (recalculate) key. It is more readable if you select the array and format display to one or
zero decimals
If you have time to kill and an interest, most modern spreadsheets can automatically graph your gear
range in color!
When I was young this sort of chart (made up by sliderule and typewritten) could be seen taped to
handlebar stems on Sunday morning rides because, as Sheldon mentioned recently , the gaps in a five
speed are huge and daunting - often worth a double shift to avoid them!
And no, there are no 14-1/2 teeth cogs yet!
In the non-English speaking countries another system is more common, "development" or how many
meters the bike travels per crank revolution. Campagnolo used to provide nice business-card-sized
gear charts of that. My commuting 60" gear travels about 4.8 meters for example
--
Andrew Muzi www.yellowjersey.org Open every day since 1 April, 1971