Originally Posted by
Bob Ross
For us young-uns who were still in diapers in 1961, can you elaborate on what you mean by "half-step gearing"? I've never heard that expression before. Thanks.
Half step means that the big jumps in gear ratios are between the rear cogs and small jumps are between the chainrings. This is the opposite of modern bikes. For this to happen, the jump between chainrings is half the percentage jump (hence half-step) between rear cogs. This method eliminates duplicate gearing, which is a problem when you only have 8 or 10 usable gears. Half-step gearing was pretty common all the way into the late-80s. Modern bikes have lots of duplicate gears but nobody cares because there are so many of them. For example, Shifting from the large to the 2nd larges cog might result in a 10% change in gear ratio. If instead you leave the chain on the largest cog but instead shift from the small to the large chainring the gear ratio only changes by 5%.