Samuel D wrote:You might ask what good is accomplished with such frequent changes. That’s a shift every 70 metres on average. Less frequent shifts, eliminating some shifts entirely (e.g. one down followed by one up), may make no difference to your ride except make it more relaxed
Not so sure on that, there isn't really a conscious thought process involved for the me the vast majority of the time. I find it's more like meic says. It was actually quite tricky to keep track of the number of changes because of that.
It would take conscious effort to
not shift, bit like not scratching an itch. And sure some people might love the zen of that, but it's not for me. I'm the same driving, I work the gears more than most and actually find it frustrating to passenger in a car with someone who's lazy with them, especially if they manage to have the engine whining on for a whole mile in 3rd @ 30mph (the zen thing does come in useful there...
)
I'm aware there are some who love the simplicity of single speeds and consider gears too complex but I'm unconvinced by the arguments, at least for me.
The way I see it, I've already dedicated a fair chunk of neural circuitry to staying on a bike in the first place (this is not an easy thing mathematics/physics wise, there is an awful lot of subconscious processing the brain does to keep us on the things at all), I've dedicated a further substantial chunk to not dying/getting harmed (i.e. identifying, tracking and predicting the likely movements of multiple hazards and the speed/path I need to take to minimise my risk to those). I'm not convinced the small amount extra I've apparently dedicated to effectively function as a smart automatic gearbox is somehow changing the activity from being relaxing to not relaxing, as far as total brain power spent getting from home to work or back that seems likely to be chicken feed.