Originally Posted by
Harold74
I can picture that as I had the misfortune of having a front cantilever brake saddle wire hopping off and catching my tire as a teenager. I've got a fake front tooth to help me remember.
To be clear:
1) Locking the drive train in many instances does not mean that the bike comes to a complete stop, right?
2) Is it my own, high RPM pedaling coming to an instant stop that will really cause the accident?
And thanks for the online gearing resource, that's awesome! The original chainrings on my bike have the middle ring not so much smaller than the larger ring, at least compared to modern bikes. That probably means that it's a half step situation right? I'm new to that terminology but I think I get it: finest gradation shifting would be done by messing with the FD a lot. I tend to change chainrings infrequently but I'm not opposed to altering that if there are benefits. I think that the sugino has a larger step from big to middle but I'll have to verify. Really, I need to figure out all of my gear ratios someday so that I can truly understand what I'm riding.
IME when I hit a big/big combo with too short a chain (which I new was too short....famous "I'll be careful until if fix it" I stopped pretty much dead in my tracks. I fortunately was going very slow behind a stroller, on a trail, on a small uphill so my fall was a monty python slow tip. Had I been going at any speed at all it would have been a really bad crash.
I think it is ill advised to set up a bike that will not use all the gearing just because of "look" at best the solutions like 2 chains etc are fiddly and at worst you can get into a crash or destroy gear situation.
and at at least to my eyes there is not that much look difference
there is a lot of experience here, hope you take advantage, but enjoy the ride no matter what
also from a looks point of view