question about gears

fergy16 said:

right now i have a pretty basic mountain with a 24 speed, which i like for climping up mountains, yet i cant seem to find online when looking up bikes i would like to buy a new full suspension mountain bike for doing single track. i want a good gear ration so i can do climb as well . but im not sure what i need when i try to look up bikes all i come up with is Rear Cogs, 9-speed things like that . what does that mean and what would be best for me. thanx

If you're going to buy a new full suspension MTB, unless you go custom on the gearing your options are going to be limited to 44/32/22t up front and 11/32t or 11/34t in back whether it's a Shimano or SRAM.

Depending on the terrain you could probably have the shop swap out the front for a trekking crankset which is 48/36/26t and a road cassette in back, such as a 12/25t (Shimano) or a 12/26t (SRAM). That could be an option if you want to use your FS MTB as a cyclo-cross bike.

It all depends on what the course and terrain is like that you're going to be riding. Many of the members of this forum have multiple cassettes and wheelsets so they can change their gearing from one type of course to another as they may have two different types of races over a weekend.

I've bolded the typical gearing setup on an MTB for climbing.

thank you for your help with that