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Old 07-21-20, 05:22 PM
  #15  
VegasTriker
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Sin City, Nevada
Posts: 2,879

Bikes: Catrike 700, Greenspeed GTO trike, , Linear LWB recumbent, Haluzak Horizon SWB recumbent, Balance 450 MTB, Cannondale SM800 Beast of the East

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The Catrike Eola was not designed to be a racing trike. Catrike made some component choices that meant it will never be a fast trike. That's how they kept the MSRP as low as they did (but still not cheap!). It has a very wide range cassette but only one chainring for just 11 gear choices. Most of the Catrikes have 30 gears with some overlap.

Not only are you new to trike riding but the one you chose from Catrike has a limited gear range. If you use the Sheldon Brown Gear Calculator and plug in the values for the Eola model (20" 406 drive wheel, 165 mm crank length, 11/42 cassette, and single 42 tooth chainring) the gear range in gear inches is 18.4 to 70.4. The gear range on my first trike was 19 to 98 gear inches. It had a 3X9 setup with common sized components (170 mm crank, 406 drive wheel, 11/32 cassette, and 32/42/52 chainrings). It wasn't long after I got used to riding it that I wanted a somewhat higher gear on the upper end. My Catrike 700 has about the same gear range as a road bike. The range in gear inches is 20.9 to 124.2. I only very rarely run out of high gears on a downhill run. The rub is that I still ride most of the time using the 10 gears in the middle range.
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