Philatio

Years ago I had a 1x6 setup with gearing that just felt.. good to pedal. And I mean better than other bikes I would ride. Every gear ratio felt awesome.

Recently on an entirely different bike I switched out my cranks and my chain ring sizes, and it coincidentally gave me gear ratios very similar to the 1x6 setup I used to run. Which was kind of cool but the interesting thing is I got that same rightness feeling when I pedal it.

So does my body have ideal gear ratios based upon body geometry, strength, etc? Does my body remember the previous setup it was adjusted to? Am I just making things up?

FBinNY 

There's a certain freshness that makes many changes feel great.

Anong others, I own a nice road bike and an equally nice fixed wheel bike. I'd be riding the road bike regularly, and one morning I'd pull it out and there's a flat tire or something. So to save time, I'd just pump up the tires on the track bike, hop on and go. It'll feel so fresh; snappy handling, low weight, and pure simplicity and I'd ask myself why it wasn't my everyday ride.

Sure enough after riding this gem for a few months something would happen and I'd pull the road bike out again. Unbelievable; so comfortable, having gears sure beats horsing the single speed up long grades, and the pure unfettered joy of coasting down a long steep hill.

Point is you're not imagining anything --- change is good, and fresh always feels great.

badamsjr

I agree with FB--fresh is good. Finding the right gears for your riding style is also good. Sometimes you go through a lot of permutations before it feels 'right', and sometimes you get it right away. Like luck, some people have more than others, I guess.

Philatio

Right but I'm trying to figure why I discovered the same country in magical gear happy land, twice.

badamsjr

2X Luck?

Al1943

Studies have shown that people perform better in a cadence range between 90 and 105 rpm. With experience this range also
feels better.

BCRider

For your region with your hill grades and your preferred riding speeds you found a setup that provides the ideal ratios. Move away to a new location with flatter or steeper hills and this will change. Similarly slack off for a while and lose some of your conditioning or hit the gym or begin ride training more and similarly your ideal speed to cadence that you have now will move to a new ratio. Your body will likely want the same cadence but with a loss or gain in conditioning the speed at which you achieve that cadence, and thus the "ideal" gear ratio, will change.

At least that's MY take on it....

My old single speed had a gear ratio that was like magic. My new single speed is close to ideal but it still isn't quite as magical as the old bike. This thread is making me think that I'll have to drop by the fellow that I sold the old bike to and ask him to count the teeth front and back so I can take note of what this seemingly ideal in town urban ratio was.

In your case, and assuming you don't plan on moving to a new geographical location any time soon, I think I'd want to record your current setup and squirrel the information away someplace. And not just the gear tooth counts. Your ideal feeling setup also includes the pedal crank length along with wheel and tire size to find the final tire contact patch diameter or tire tread circumference. Both the crank length and tire tread diameter are key to the overall pedal rotation to road distance travelled ratio that forms the complete system ratio which gives you this "feel".

Al1943

Well said. I agree completely.