Originally Posted by
tomato coupe
Understanding and calculating gear ratios requires nothing beyond grade school mathematics, i.e. multiplication and division.
Understanding the
implications of gear ratios, and having a good sense of how to predict what you have use for, is greatly aided by a decent sense for kinematics.
Sure, any idiot can figure out how many gear inches result from a gear combo and a wheel diameter, and how fast that'll go at some cadence. But that doesn't mean that that person will understand what they need to perform optimally in the terrain they ride in, and
why. And the
why is important, in terms of people pulling the trigger on changes.