Originally Posted by
noglider
It's just a scale. Other scales are just as good and no better, if you use the measurement for comparison. I happen to think in gear inches, but you could argue that "rollout" is more meaningful.
I'm in favor of the US going to the metric system, and I can think in kilometers or miles. They're different scales.
But I would like it if we stuck to Fahrenheit. That's a sensible scale, because it encompasses human experience. The coldest we experience is about 0º, and the hottest we experience is about 100º.
You're absolutely right Noglider, though I disagree on the sensibility of the Fahrenheit scale. Besides, the important bit is that all good tea temperatures are based on the boiling temperatures of water at 100º Celcius.
Kelvin should be pretty easy to convert to if we want to make the whole world change though.
I might be a metric based person but gear inches is useful as a random scale to see how the gearing on a bike compares.
For example:
- Koga-Miyata SilverAce with Sturmey Archer XL-RD5(w) 5-speed hub 33x16T (Gear-Calulator)
- I sometimes run out of gears on the high end on a gentle downhill or with a tailwind and I only use the lowest gear when riding up one of the tall bridges here.
- Batavus Randonneur GL with 52/42/26 x 11-34 (Gear-Calculator)
- I barely, if ever use the 52x11 setup but I am very glad when riding this bike in the mountains for the low gear. Before this I maxed out with a 32 x 32 low gear at 27.4 gear inches.
- Future project bike plans: 43/26 x 10-speed 11-36 (Gear-Calculator)
- The specific crankset I have in mind would have a very similar useful spread with a 10-speed 11-36 cassette and would offer gears closer together in the high end than I have now.
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