Granny gears

David Glover said:

Surprisingly, it didn't take much longer to get to the top than it normally
does, and I actually got to my destination *quicker* than I normally do

Only surprising thing is that it took any longer at all. Unless you're
really laying down power honking out of the saddle then spinning up at a
good cadence in grannies is usually at least as quick. Quite a few
people I overtake locally are standing up and mashing their big gears at
continental drift cadence while I just spin on by on the Brompton,
hardly a bike in its element climbing hills...

Quoted message said:

The wonders of granny gears!

Indeed. I used to be rather afraid of using them for some reason.
Whatever it was, it was a daft and unreasonable reason, and I'm glad
I've left it behind. But it does seem to be quite widespread.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

"Peter Clinch" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

David Glover said:

Surprisingly, it didn't take much longer to get to the top than it

normally

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

does, and I actually got to my destination *quicker* than I normally do

Only surprising thing is that it took any longer at all. Unless you're
really laying down power honking out of the saddle then spinning up at a
good cadence in grannies is usually at least as quick. Quite a few
people I overtake locally are standing up and mashing their big gears at
continental drift cadence while I just spin on by on the Brompton,
hardly a bike in its element climbing hills...

Quoted message said:

The wonders of granny gears!

Indeed. I used to be rather afraid of using them for some reason.
Whatever it was, it was a daft and unreasonable reason, and I'm glad
I've left it behind. But it does seem to be quite widespread.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

"Peter Clinch" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

David Glover said:

The wonders of granny gears!

Indeed. I used to be rather afraid of using them for some reason.
Whatever it was, it was a daft and unreasonable reason, and I'm glad
I've left it behind. But it does seem to be quite widespread.

I just gob-smacked that you'd both have a toy and not play with it, let
alone have a useful tool like a granny ring and not at least experiment with
it.
Why would you not use it?

Yours, confused of Leicester.
(AKA Pete)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Indeed. I used to be rather afraid of using them for some reason.
Whatever it was, it was a daft and unreasonable reason, and I'm glad
I've left it behind. But it does seem to be quite widespread.

I just gob-smacked that you'd both have a toy and not play with it, let
alone have a useful tool like a granny ring and not at least experiment

with

Quoted message said:

it.
Why would you not use it?

Yours, confused of Leicester.
(AKA Pete)

My take on this is that you are afraid of running out of gears, so if you've
got some lower ones left you still feel safe. It's nonsense of course, but
that's the psychology in my view; just like running out of money (bus fare
home), or air whilst scuba diving. It's deeply ingrained in the brain. Now
I've got loads of low gears I'm much happier changing down, and down with no
fear of running out.
Hywel

Peter Clinch said:

But it does seem to be quite widespread.

I assume it's mostly people just not understanding how bike gears work
and they are frightened to change anything. Makes you wonder why they
bother buying a bike with gears in the first place.

d.

davek said:

Makes you wonder why they
bother buying a bike with gears in the first place.

Is it actually possible for your average bike-buyer to find a bike without
gears?

Peter Clinch [email hidden] opined the following...

Quoted message said:

Indeed. I used to be rather afraid of using them for some reason.
Whatever it was, it was a daft and unreasonable reason, and I'm glad
I've left it behind. But it does seem to be quite widespread.

I suspect a large part of it may boil down to cyclists who dont
understand the physics. The motor car (And its gearbox) leads many
people to directly equate gears with speed. Thus the granny ring is for
going slowly and they want to go fast.

This is why bicycle training for adults is not as daft a concept as the
meedja would have us believe. In some cases, a little education can go a
long way! :-)

Jon

Quoted message said:

Indeed. I used to be rather afraid of using them for some reason.
Whatever it was, it was a daft and unreasonable reason, and I'm glad
I've left it behind. But it does seem to be quite widespread.

I'm always vaguely scared it won't change up again, but this does come
after several months of fiddling with it before throwing money at the lbs,
who gave up and just whacked a new front mech on. Of course now the rear
gears have started playing up which'll probably follow a similar pattern of
fiddle to no effect then throw at the bike shop - grrr.

David Glover said:

My five mile commute to work, as I have previously mentioned, involves a
particularly unpleasant steepish hill, right at the start of the journey.
It's probably an entirely pleasant hill for other cyclists, but I'm unfit.
Anyway, I digress.

Normally I force the bike up it, wheezing and generally cursing (me, not the
bike), and then complete the rest of my journey feeling pretty terrible.

Today, as an experiment, I used my otherwise unused granny gears, peddling
like a fool while crawling along.

I think you're sensible to use the granny. What is there to gain by
flogging yourself on the hill before you've got warmed up,
particularly if you don't consider yourself fit?

--
Dave...

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live. - Mark Twain

David Glover said:

My five mile commute to work, as I have previously mentioned,
involves a particularly unpleasant steepish hill, right at the start
of the journey. It's probably an entirely pleasant hill for other
cyclists, but I'm unfit. Anyway, I digress.

Normally I force the bike up it, wheezing and generally cursing (me,
not the bike), and then complete the rest of my journey feeling
pretty terrible.

Today, as an experiment, I used my otherwise unused granny gears,
peddling like a fool while crawling along.

Surprisingly, it didn't take much longer to get to the top than it
normally does, and I actually got to my destination *quicker* than I
normally do, since I felt great for the rest of the journey and
managed a higher average speed.

The wonders of granny gears!

On recent group rides, those of us with triple chainsets have usually been
faster up the hills than those with doubles. Since i started using triples I
have been able to do longer rides as the hills have tired me less. The
result of the longer rides has been me being fitter and lighter and the need
for lower gears that the triple provided has diminished !!!

Simonb said:

Is it actually possible for your average bike-buyer to find a bike without
gears?

They stock BMXs in Halfords, don't they?

d.

Jon Senior said:

The motor car (And its gearbox) leads many
people to directly equate gears with speed.

Surely most motorists understand the need to select a lower gear when
going up a steep hill? Although, having said that...

Quoted message said:

This is why bicycle training for adults is not as daft a concept as the
meedja would have us believe.

Indeed.

d.

Peter B said:

"Peter Clinch" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

David Glover said:

The wonders of granny gears!

Indeed. I used to be rather afraid of using them for some reason.
Whatever it was, it was a daft and unreasonable reason, and I'm glad
I've left it behind. But it does seem to be quite widespread.

I just gob-smacked that you'd both have a toy and not play with it, let
alone have a useful tool like a granny ring and not at least experiment with
it.
Why would you not use it?

I think it is because many people mistakenly think that "more gears" =
"faster". Certainly I used to come across many people who thought that
their 27 gears would go faster than my 12 (Despite their highest gear
being 42/12 compared to my 52/14). And in having this mentality, they
perhaps don't appreciate that using a "slow gear" will get them
somewhere faster.

--
Warning: This user suffers from narcolepppppppppp
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Peter B said:

I just gob-smacked that you'd both have a toy and not play with it, let
alone have a useful tool like a granny ring and not at least experiment with
it.
Why would you not use it?

Originally, when I was a kid, the Aspirational Bike was a Raleigh (or
perhaps Puch) "racer" with 5 or 10 gears. Gears were like penknife
blades for us, it wasn't what they *did*, but how many you had, purely
as bragging rights[1].

And however many gears we had, we knew the fastest possible speed on a
bike was in top gear, so that's the gear we stayed in. Bragging rights
up hills weren't who went fastest, but what was the highest gear you
could arrive at the top in[1].

These are difficult habits to shake, reinforced by first bikes we
learned on having a single speed and a simple equation of "to get up the
hill, stand up".

I got out of the habit by being told it was bad and spinning lower stuff
was a better alternative and trying it out (it worked even though I only
had a 6 x 2 and no real "granny", that being par for the course in '89
when I bought my first "real" bike), but I've come across people who
just won't take that advice on board.

Pete.

[1] yes, of course it's stupid. We also wore flared jeans at the time.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Peter Clinch said:

These are difficult habits to shake, reinforced by first bikes we
learned on having a single speed and a simple equation of "to get up
the hill, stand up".

Yer not wrong there, Pete. It never ceases to astonish me the number of
cyclists I encounter who grind away from the lights or up hills (and
occasionally both) in top gear. Especially those on mountain bikes.

I think I was lucky, having encountered "Richard's Bicycle Book" while at an
impressionable age...

--

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
World Domination?
Just find a world that's into that kind of thing, then chain to the
floor and walk up and down on it in high heels. (Mr. Sunshine)

Jon Senior <jon_AT_restlesslemon_DOTco_DOT_uk> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I suspect a large part of it may boil down to cyclists who dont
understand the physics. The motor car (And its gearbox) leads many
people to directly equate gears with speed. Thus the granny ring is for
going slowly and they want to go fast.

This also might explain why you see people using ludicrously low gears
when starting on the flat, and why you also see them struggling along
in top gear at 15 mph.

--
Dave...

Quoted message said:

This also might explain why you see people using ludicrously low gears
when starting on the flat, and why you also see them struggling along
in top gear at 15 mph.

Round these parts they have 'em in a really low gear, and so peddle at the
speed of sound but still get overtaken by broken down milkfloats and
roadkill.

Dave Larrington said:

Yer not wrong there, Pete. It never ceases to astonish me the number of
cyclists I encounter who grind away from the lights or up hills (and
occasionally both) in top gear. Especially those on mountain bikes.

/Another/ thing that's good about recumbent bikes is they force one to
abandon this sort of thing on the grounds that wobbling and then falling
over makes one more obviously appear Silly than trying to honk away in a
100" gear...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

davek said:

Peter Clinch said:

But it does seem to be quite widespread.

Quoted message said:

I assume it's mostly people just not understanding how bike gears work
and they are frightened to change anything. Makes you wonder why they
bother buying a bike with gears in the first place.

Most people buy bikes for fashionable reasons. Lots of gears are
fashionable. So is no mudguards. Can't think of any other explanatiom
for why on rainy days university students cycle round Edinburgh with
mud stripes up their backs sogging the lecture notes and textbooks in
their back packs, which of course are not proof against water being
hurled *upwards* at them under the flap.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]