VegasTriker

The concept of gear inches for a gear range is it allows you to easily compare bikes with different sized wheels. My first trike had a 20 inch drive wheel and 3X9 drive train. The gear range was 19 to 98. My second trike with internal hubs and still a 20" drive wheel had a gear range of 14 to 128 gear inches while my Catrike 700 with a 700C rear wheel is 20.0 to 124.2 GI. It's pretty easy to understand which trike had the lowest low and the highest high gear and how they compare.

I own one of the best trikes ever designed specifically for touring, a 2001 Greenspeed GTO. It came equipped with a single 65 tooth chainring, Schlumpf Mountain Drive (front internal 2-speed hub), and 3X8 SACHS Spectro 7 in the rear. That gave it the extraordinary wide gear range. It has Hope C2 hydraulic disc brakes for super stopping power, The frame is steel and the total weight is 39 pounds. The trike has more than 30,000 miles on it and I am the third owner. In those 30K miles the rear derailleur (Shimano 105) had to be replaced once. It didn't break but simply wore out from too many miles. The GTO has been out of production for more than a decade but they show up used on occasion, I paid $2,400 for it back in 2004 and it came with hundreds of dollars in touring accessories. I consider it a bargain purchase.

I'm pretty sure I used 11/34 for the cassette when entering the data in Sheldon Brown's gear calculator. I got the numbers off the Performer website.