Originally Posted by
speyfitter
RANT
I feel that the front cranks sold on many bikes commonly promoted to commuter types are too large and that this is doing a disservice to commuter cyclists. For example many 8 speed commuter type bikes are sold with a 48-38-28 triple crank. If you shift with consideration for chain line management this means that the average commuter cyclist will seldom utilize the largest chainring for much of their city riding and the smallest 28 tooth chainring will at times, depending on the rear cassette (assume an 11-32 rear cassette), find on steeper hills the lowest gear won't be low enough requiring them to have to get off and push their bike or find the climb more gruelling and tiring then it needs to be, especially for newer riders and/or those carrying more weight. In this case, if the bike was sold with a 42-32-22 front crank instead the climbs on harder hills would be much easier, the likelihood of pushing bikes in these situations would be reduced, and the front crank set would see a more even use of all 3 gears on the front crankset and on the rear cassette. The reality is the average commuter cyclist can't push a 48-11 or 48-13 tooth combo except on downhills or if they somehow like extra low cadence.
END OF RANT
While I agree that bikes tend to be overgeared on the low end, I don’t agree that the high gear is too high. I use my high gears all the time...see my post about that 550 foot climb which becomes a 3 mile 550 drop on the way home. I hate coasting at 20 to 25 because I’ve run out of top gear. That’s what I had to do back in the old days of mountain biking when we had a 44/13 gear combination, which was the highest we could go.