Originally Posted by
Ron Damon
Are you familiar with the writings of one James Thurber, Grouch? He wrote a fine short story titled The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I read it in high school, assigned reading by Father Lux for sophomore English class in my Jesuit high school in NYC. I'll let you Google the gist of the story, but I think it's appropriate for this 566% gear range. It's aspirational, it's a Walter Mitty gear range for a folder.
Funny. I haven't read the book but have heard of the movie, I think starring Danny Kaye, but have never seen it. Yeah I've read of folks that combined a sram 3x8 with a triple crank to get 72 speeds, just to prove they can. But that 566% is not like that. Like I said, 400% is adequate for me now, but I respect the judgement of experienced folks, and this tourer's blog, crazyguyonabike, said after some loaded touring on a bike friday, he lowered his gearing to 15 inch low because he needed it (I think some steep grades in scotland if I recall?), I don't recall how high a range. He also upgraded to disc brakes and related how bike friday was able to do that easy, I can't recall if they just shipped him all the new parts, or he drove down to BF in Eugene OR (he lives in Seattle WA), it's not a huge long drive. But nope, not going to change gearing now, gonna wait until I have a disc bike, just because of the number of new parts involved. Ideally, I'll just buy a disc bike with good 1X setup like yours and a front derailleur braze-on, and just add a 2X crank and shifter if needed, that's a real easy add.