Originally Posted by
63rickert
The other problem is big gears. Some of the gears mentioned on this thread are just enormous. The 42x17 mentioned in your post is way more reasonable.
Coincidentally, I switched from 42/16 to 42/17 today on my vintage MTB. With colder weather arriving here and chronically wet and slippery trails, I’m now running bigger, knobby tires, the surfaces are stickier and with leaves down every ride is windy. So, it seemed a better choice to gear down slightly. Anything resembling normal cruising speeds now on this bike will still be a very reasonable cadence of 100 rpm or less. 👍
Otto