You are not exactly wrong, but you are not exactly right, either. The loaner bike has a 7 speed 11-34 "mega range" freewheel. You are correct that there is a huge jump between the second lowest to lowest gear, 24 teeth to 34 teeth. They configured it this way so the rider has 6 relatively closely spaced gears plus one bailout gear. It is a sensible compromise for a rider who mostly rides on flats but sometimes needs a bailout gear.
The 11 speed cassette is a Shimano 11 - 32 cassette. The advantage of that cassette isn't at the lower gears but the higher ones, where the 4 highest gears have 1 tooth jumps. But at the lowest gears, the jumps are 3 to 4 teeth, so no real advantage over a better chosen 8 or 9 speed cassette. (The 11 tooth cog is, at least for me. Worthless as I never need 120 gear inches anyway. You need to go more than 35 mph to use that gear)
Originally Posted by
CarloM
So again, pardon my ignorance as I'm just getting back into cycling, but here's what I'm seeing.
Here is a pic of the cassette from the loaner bike that I have right now:
I'm seeing a huge difference between the 2nd gear and the largest 1st gear (the one that says Megadrive Super-Low 34T). I'm using 1st and 2nd gear numbering because that's how they're numbered on the shifters...and also how I'm used to thinking about gears as it relates to cars.
And here is a picture I took of the cassette from Trek's website for the FX S6 (again, mine hasn't arrived so apologies for taking a picture from a computer screen).
There seems to be much less size differentials between the lowest gears
In fact it looks like they fit potentially two more gears in the lower picture between the gap that 1st and 2nd gear of the upper picture. It almost looks like the loaner I have have home jumps from 1st to 4th gear (in diameter size) when compared to the 11 gear cassette in the lower picture.
Or do I have things totally backwards?