sdj

I am looking at the Liv Flourish FS Disc bike which has a nice low stand over of 17.8 inches (in the XS size) for us short people. It also has a microSHIFT Advent, 1x9 shifter. I do not get these shifters at all. I am used a shifter that is 3 x 7 or 3 x 8 to give me the number of gears.


Does anyone know if the microSHIFT Advent, 1x9 would give me any climbing gears sufficient for a 6 to 8% grade? So does it literally have only 9 gears?


Thanks.

Crankycrank

Yes, only 9 speeds. We are missing a lot of info to help you out though. I did a quick search and found one 9 speed Liv Flourish FS Disc bike. Is this yours? Flourish FS Disc (2023) | Women bike | Liv Cycling US (liv-cycling.com) Looks like it has a 42 tooth chainring up front and a cassette (rear sprockets) with a 46-tooth low gear so that would be a good climbing gear for some people but best to give it a test ride as your climbing fitness will determine if it's OK for you.

Iride01 

Climbing gears? What those are will be too dependent on several things. You being the big thing. How fit are you for cycling and how strong are your legs? The other things will be how long and continuous is that 6 - 8% grade? And how much total weight will you be going up that slope.

With just one front chain ring you do only have the 9 speeds on the rear. But with a 42 front chainring and a rear sprocket max of 46, you'll have a 0.913 ratio for low. And that's much lower than any of us on road bikes with more than three times the choice of gear ratios. Number of speeds doesn't limit your ability to climb or go fast. It just changes the number of gear ratios you have between the highest and lowest ratios.

If you have access to another bike to ride the terrain you want to ride, then see what gear ratios you use to be comfortable on those climbs. Divide the tooth count of the front chain ring by the tooth count of rear sprocket that is being used. Then you'll be able to compare gearing between different bikes better.

Welcome to BF.

grumpus

Don't forget to multiply by the (actual, not nominal) wheel diameter if you're comparing bikes with different diameter wheels.

KerryIrons

As others have noted, only your specific circumstances can determine if the 1x9 setup on this bike will have low enough gears for you. In general, "one-by" systems have close to the same overall gear range as those with double and even triple chain rings, but the gears are farther apart. For some riders this may result in the sense that "this gear is too low but the next gear is too high." Other riders don't seem to notice/care.

70sSanO

No, you will not have as low a gear as a triple (3x), not with a 42t chainring. Of course, depending on how the triple is set up.

Since you are familiar with climbing on a 3x7 and 3x8, you need to calculate the gear inches and compare, as others have suggested. You might be able to swap out the chainring to get lower gearing at the expense of top end.

But the bottom line is that you will probably lose range. And if you are close to a triple overall, you will definitely have horrible gaps between each gear ratio.

John

Edit added: Since the Flourish is considered a “city” bike it is not set up for a wide range. Your best solution might be to go with a 42/26 subcompact crank. From a “gearing” perspective it is just adding a 26t inner chainring for climbing. You’ll need to find out what options are available.

grumpus

That bike has an 11-46 cassette and 42 tooth crankset, that's 25 to 105 gear inches. An older mountain bike with 22-32-44 rings and 13-30 cassette has gears from 19 to 89 inches. The difference between 19 and 25 inch bottom gear is not much more than one click. The thing about multiple chainrings is you get lots of gears, but lots of them are very similar ratios, so you typically don't use them all, and chainline makes some of them not work well anyway. Remove the middle ring because all its gears are available on the other rings, don't use the 2 highest with the 22, or 2 lowest with the 44 because of bad chain angle, and your 3x8 "24 speed" transmission is actually just 12 useful gears, and a couple of those are duplicates. With a 1x9 transmission you get 9 quite evenly spaced ratios in a logical order, with the simplicity of just one shifter.

sdj

Yes, the 2023 Liv Flourish FS Disc is the bike I am considering to buy. So it seems you are saying it may give me some climbing ability but I should try is out. I did not know that the crankset had to be considered.

Thank you for the info.

Camilo

What is your low gear now - smallest chain ring with largest sprocket.

You know of course that the lowest gear (i.e. "climbing gear") is based on the lowest gear on the bike, not the number of gears?

I have an Advent 9 bike that has a 40t chain wheel and came with a 11-42 cassette for a low gear ratio of 1.05 This is approximately the same as a 30t small ring on a triple in front and a 32t large sprocket in back.

I changed my cassette to a 11-46 which works fine with the Advent 9 RD even though it's not rated to 46t. That makes the low gear 1.15 which is similar to the 30t small ring triple with a 34t large sprocket on the cassette.

You can do your own math to see if the Advent 9 would give you similar low gear to what you're currently using.

sdj

Thanks to all that replied. I get it now. It is all about the gear ratio & I must consider the ratio of the crankset divided by the cassette to get the lowest gear. I understand that the 2023 Liv Flourish FS Disc that I am looking at has a low gear ratio of .913. I will compare that to the lowest gear on my bike now that I use for climbing.

Andrew R Stewart 

As a frame guy I look at this bike's specs and see the huge trail with relatively laid back head angle (for a bike meant for prepared surfaces). Not an uncommon result when trying to shoehorn big wheels on a small bike and use the same fork for every size. I've built frames for a number of shorter women who once they tried a well designed small person's bike they no longer ride their old one, unless they have to.

As to the gearing: a 25" low gear might be fine for many and in many locals. Where I live and ride for my age and conditioning that's not low enough. But that this not really low gear (IMO) comes with huge gaps between each gear is, maybe, a worse aspect that I wouldn't like. It's too bad that changing bikes parts to get what a specific rider likes is getting harder to achieve as the industry moves away from double and triple cranksets. If getting this bike is dependent on getting even lower gearing you, or your shop, really need to do the homework and see if this bike will accept a front derailleur.

I strongly suggest test riding this bike before spending any money. For both to find out if the gearing is low enough and compatible with how you ride as well as how the bike feels in its overall handling. A test ride should include a bit of climbing, some slow and some fast (down the climbs) riding. Ideally for long enough for the common initial excitation to have subsided... Andy

Andrew R Stewart 

Creak goes Pandora's Box lid... Now that you are learning about gear ratios and such The common reference for gear ratios is by pretending that there's no gear system and the cranks rotated once per rear wheel rotation, like a kid's tricycle. Gear system ratios just allow you to straddle that virtual wheel, in a manor of speaking when it grows to the nearly 4x "bigger wheel" that the 42x11 gear results in.

Some riders shift rather frequently when in changing conditions, rolling hills, route turns and wind directions being typical examples. Some riders tend to leave the bike in one gear till they have to shift to be able to keep going (up a hill, into the wind). The former often likes the ratio amount change between gears to be around 10ish%. The later often doesn't spend many miles in middling gears ( so the intermediatory gaps don't mater) and the high and low ones are what mater most. Andy

70sSanO

Most people are have a hard time with gear inches; and a ratio without tire size only gives part of the picture.

If you go to this site you can plug in the tire of the bike you ride, the inner chainring (teeth), and the large cog/sprocket (teeth) that will give you ear inches. But, you can also plug in a speed and it will tell you and it will also give you the cadence (RPM) that you normally ride up. It is doubtful that the LIV will have the exact same gear inches as your 3x7/3x8, but you will get an idea in what the numbers mean if you know how fast you usually ride up a 6%-8% climb. It gives you a real life perspective on where the LIV gearing lands to what you are accustomed. If it ends up a cog of two higher, can you live with that?

https://patricktaylor.com/bicycle-gear-inch-calculator/

John

70sSanO

If you have been using 3x7, there is probably a good chance it is not running an 11t. Figure out how much top end you need see if you can get a smaller chainring, than the 42t, that will get you low enough for climbs and still cover normal riding.

I'm not familiar with the ProWheel crank being used. In the picture it looks like a 5 bolt. If it is 110mm bolt circle diameter (bcd) you can go down to a 34t minimum, if it is 130mm bcd, 38t is the smallest.

Once again, it depends on what options you have from LIV, or if an authorized shop can swap it out.

John

Duragrouch

Without repeating any of the above, one small comment: These newer "1X" ("one-by") systems, I thought was a fad or gimmick, until I realized, they have *no duplicate gears*! I run a 2x7 system (could not fit a triple crank due to front derailleur issues, but modern "wide range doubles", 50/34 for example, give me almost as much range). But here's the thing, 5 gears in the middle are duplicates; You currently can't get enough difference in adjacent chainrings on a double crank, to avoid that. So my "14 speed" is actually a 9-speed. So if I could, I'd run a 1X system, except I can't (or would be difficult); My bike has 20"/406 tires, and those 1X systems, for the gear range I would need (400%), would have a low cog (sprockets in back) that is so large, the rear derailleur might scrape the ground. Some newer derailleurs I think solve this, but it's close. Also more expensive freehubs are available to use a 9 tooth high cog instead of my 11, so the low gear would be 36T instead of 44T. 1X systems are designed for bikes with tires larger than 20". I'm happy with my 2X system, it worked out well (modified from originally 7 speed 1X).

sdj

Hello All, once again thanks for your comments. I am pretty sure Liv is not going to work with me to adjust the gear ratios. I called them to ask why they would take their Flourish FS model from 2021 that had 24 gears & go to this 1x system in the 2022 and 2023 models. I did not get a good answer & they asked me to put my complaint in an email (may do this later). I also do not want to take a bike that "almost fits my needs" & try to customize it.

I am going to keep looking for a 21 or 24 gear bike that I am used to even if I have to sacrifice the lowest possible stand over height to get more gears. The Liv Alight 3 still has 21 gears but the top frame bar is higher & thus the stand over is higher at 26.9 inches.

70sSanO

Probably the short answer is Shimano is moving away from triple setups. They might continue at the lowest level, Tourney, which you want to avoid. It might be less about LIV and more about Shimano.

If you do contact them, the only questions would be why they can’t offer a different chainring, or a compact/subcontract crank.

But their business model may not allow going to anything but Microshift and it probably fills 90% plus of their customers.

John

Andrew R Stewart 

This! Many people are of the impression that the bike brands do the bike designs and only source the components they believe in. The reality is that Shimano and SRAM dictate the vast majority of the frame design aspects WRT how the parts that they are going to both make and market that year fit, and these are the only parts the bike brands can pick from if they want to be market competitive. About the only aspects of the bike that the bike brand has total control over is the color. Their liability people will run roughshod over designs that move too far off the norm WRT handling geometry, their marketing people will do as much as they can to piggy back on the big two component company marketing and also keep their bike a good perceived value and the money people will demand a sell through so no year old products is left to discount. Andy

70sSanO

There is a bit of good news, depending on how well it performs. The old Acera, Altus 3x8 systems that were on the 2021 have gone away, but Shimano is coming out with CUES groupsets. You won’t be able to get a new 3x8 in the future.

Since it is at lower price point and running skinny 11 speed chain and 11 speed cassette spacing, if Shimano can pull it off it will offers lot that is not available at those price points. If LIV offers CUES drivetrain, you might get a better setup in the next couple years.

It will also let Shimano sell a lot more chains and cassettes.

John

Duragrouch

Except we 20" wheel and smaller bike owners are out of luck, those big pieplate low cogs fit with great difficulty with conventional rear derailleurs. CUES U4000 2x9 will work, but who knows how long that will be around. Most folding bike makers don't worry about having a climbing low, their bikes are typically 30-40 gear-inch lows. I retrofit mine for 21 using 2X. But folks like Bike Friday, 20" touring bikes, rely on triples (way in the past, or special request for a super granny) or wide-range doubles. For a while they were going IGH 3x8, but those are no longer made, and I don't want IGH. My guess is they'll use non-Shimano/SRAM components of decent reputation. Feels like O Brother Where Art Thou.

"I don't carry Dapper Dan, I carry Fop."
"Well I don't want Fop d@mn it! I'm a Dapper Dan man!"

Street corner, begging: "Brother, can you spare a triple crank?"

Like trying to find typewriter ribbons and drafting tools. And freewheel removers.

Trakhak

If you want to understand why Liv has cut way back on the number of models available with 21 or 24 gears (to be fair to Liv, that is what almost all other bike manufacturers have done, too), do a search on YouTube for, e.g., "3X bike gears vs 1X and 2X". You'll find plenty of videos explaining why those choices exist and how to choose what's best for you.

If you prefer reading to watching videos, here goes.

To clear up a fundamental misunderstanding of how bicycle gearing works:

The total number of gears tells you nothing about the range of gears (from lowest to highest gear) on a given bike.

The Liv model you've been posting about may have a "harder" low gear than your previous bike. But it may also have the same low gear, or may even have a lower ("easier") low gear.

You could, at least theoretically, set up a bike with only two gear choices whose easiest gear is still easier than the easiest gear on another bike with 24 gears. The jump from the first gear to the second gear would be very large, but the bike could be set up to have the highest ("hardest") high gear and the lowest (easiest) low gear you'd ever need.

So, what you need to figure out is whether the 9-speed Liv bike has an adequate low gear for the kind of riding you do.

To compare the low gear on your previous bike to the low gear on the Liv bike, simply calculate the front-chainring-to-large-rear-sprocket ratios for the two bikes using the methods described earlier in this thread (online gear calculators make the calculation easy).

Be sure to include the wheel size in the calculations for best results. (You don't have to measure the wheels - just choose, e.g., 20 inch versus 29 inch or whichever choices best describe the wheel sizes of the two bikes.)

If the low-gear ratios on two bikes are the same, or nearly the same, the gearing difference between the bikes is likely to come down to two factors:

(1) How closely spaced the ratios are (a bike with three chainrings - often referred to as a 3X bike - probably has more closely spaced gearing; some riders care about this, some don't)

(2) How many duplicated ratios there are (a 3X setup almost certainly has a number of duplicated ratios, which means that most bikes with, e.g., 24 gears actually have something like 18 distinct ratios, if that many)

Why 9 speeds versus 21 or 24 speeds?

In moving away from gearing systems with 21 or 24 gears, Liv is simply following market trends. They and other major manufacturers have found that many or even most riders prefer the simplicity of single-chainring (1X) bikes to the complexity of triple chainrings.

Or, to put it another way, they have found that 1X bikes are easier to sell than bikes with 2X or 3X gearing, because many customers find 2X and 3X setups confusing and unnecessarily complicated.

Even on Bike Forums, in discussions of the merits of 3X versus 2X and 1X, the majority of posters now heatedly argue that 3X is a bad choice for any rider except those who do bike touring with heavy loads.

Personally, I like having a 3X setup for at least one of my bikes, but I have many 2X and 1X bikes and only one 3X bike.

Of course, the simplest way to find out if the gearing of the 1X Liv bike would be satisfactory for you would be to test ride the Liv bike. If you're able to do a test ride, there's a very good chance that you'll find you have no more trouble climbing hills with it than with your previous 3X bike.

Duragrouch

Re: Trakhak #21 above:

Excellent explanation (which I knew), yes, range more important than number of speeds.

My 2x7 has 5 duplicate gears in the middle, even with a 16T difference at the chainrings. 1X systems have no dupes.

Once moving from flatlands to hills, putting a 3X crank on my road race bike was a huge improvement. Very easy to get an extra-low with external gearing on a big wheel bike.

Going the other direction is harder; I have a 20" wheel bike, went from 1X to 2X crank for a better low, worked great. Never even considered 1X at the time, but glad I went 2X, because 1X with the same low range, the rear derailleur would be very close to the ground at best. But going higher gearing, I'd need a huge non-standard chainring, or internal gear hub (IGH) to get an "overdrive", or switching the freehub body to allow a 9T high. Fortunately, I don't need racer highs, 21-85 gear inches is just enough for me.

Thankfully these days, there is a roaring aftermarket in bike parts on amazon, as the big players stop offering 3X and 2X systems.

choddo

I expect you’ve already thought of this but either a nearly new or end of line 2021 model might be available. e.g. these bods still have a small (wrong country and size no doubt but just an example)
Lowest gear on that was a 0.82 (28T:34T) all else likely being the same, about 10% easier on hills.

One of the big benefits of 1x gear systems is that there’s a lot less to go wrong. Front shifting is often a source of calamity and heartbreak.
I have 2X on all my bikes though. Don’t like the aesthetics of the dinner plate rear cogs.

70sSanO

Not to send this way OT, but we are probably less than a generation away from gearing becoming a non-issue.

Lower gearing has never been the problem. The real problem is the lack of watts. Riders with the legs to climb just motored up while mere mortals got out of the saddle and methodically stair stepped up in their 42-28 low gear.

But there is a whole generation that has never, and maybe will never experience that. Where I live nothing is flat but I have never seen as many kids riding bikes. They are everywhere.

As those kids age, a few will hard line it, but the vast majority will never give those watts up. So manufacturers will get to where it will be less than a 5lb penalty with virtually no drag. The era of squeezing out a few less gear inches will be over.

John

Trakhak

You're seeing the kids that ride bikes, not the ones that don't. Let's hope you're right, but (from a quick search):

Childhood obesity has been a problem in the United States for decades. The rate of childhood obesity has tripled since the 1970s. As of 2023, 1 in 5 children in the US are obese, with this number rising yearly.