Looking for advice: getting into casual biking with fairly low budget

[Nearholmer]

Yes, it is really worthwhile getting your head around what the numbers mean when it comes to gearing.

This can be made complicated, but I will try to keep it simple, on the basis that all the bikes you are looking at have the same sized wheels, and the tyres will be roughly the same size.

What you are interested in is how many times the back wheel goes round for one full turn of the pedals. If it goes round lots of times, you go fast, but will struggle if going up hill, if it goes round the same or fewer times than the pedals, you will go slowly, and hills will be easy.

To find out how many times the back wheel will go round for each turn of the pedals, divide the number of teeth on the selected front gear, by the number of teeth on the selected back gear.

So, looking at typical numbers for the sorts of bikes you’ve been considering, you might find a ‘fastest’ gear of say 52/11 (52 teeth on the biggest gear at the front, 11 teeth on the smallest gear at the back. 52/11 = 4.7, so every turn of the pedals turns the back wheel 4.7 times. That will make you whizz along on flat ground or downhill.

Similarly for a typical ‘easiest’ gear, maybe 30 teeth on the small gear at the front, and 34 teeth on the biggest gear at the back, 30/34 = 0.88. For every turn of the pedals the back wheel goes round 0.88 times. Anything 1 or less is good for steep hills.

You will find mountain bikes with lowest gears that might be down as far as 0.6 or even 0.5, but you don’t really need numbers that low unless you are riding really steep, rough tracks in the woods, and on smoother ground they quickly become annoying. For the sort of thing you are describing, provided the lowest gear is 1 or less you should be OK going up hills, and you probably want a highest gear of 4 or more to get decent speed on the flat, whereas mountain bikes sometimes only have a high gear c3, which is really tedious on the flat.

I hope that makes sense and helps you understand what the various bikes can do.

[Jamesh]

I've found on tarmac that anything lower than 1-1 gearing your better off walking tbh.

I don't think gears make too much of a difference so long as they work.... If it's jumping or not quite on the cog then it's annoying!

[Nearholmer]

I take it as a point of honour not to get off and walk until I really, really have to, and do use the 0.88 on mine on road occasionally, although more often on road it’s there as a ‘last resort’, just in case. May be an age (63yo) thing though, because when I was younger I didn’t need to resort to such low gears.

[djnotts]

"I've found on tarmac that anything lower than 1-1 gearing your better off walking tbh."

A personal thing. I was very glad of 22 x 34 today. And I certainly couldn't have walked it without a rest every 10-20 yards.

[Jamesh]

"I've found on tarmac that anything lower than 1-1 gearing your better off walking tbh."

A personal thing. I was very glad of 22 x 34 today. And I certainly couldn't have walked it without a rest every 10-20 yards.

Agreed I'm a fit 45 yo with 5k pb near my all time pb.

Marathon time of 3hrs.