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Whats your 29er Lowest Gear Ratio?

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Discussion starter · #41 ·
DavidR1 said:
What a funny thread. The gearing that I run makes no difference to anybody. It is completely dependent on the trails that I choose to ride and my given topography along with the strength of the rider. None of which anybody has discussed in their posts.
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My last post was on this exact point, ha.
 
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#42 ·
pimpbot said:
.... waiting for somebody to chime in with 'HTFU and pedal' ... 'lose some weight, fatash' or some other stupid advice like that.
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Maybe the fear of getting negative rep has reduced that type of rudeness.

When I ride with a group I try to beat everyone on the climbs, but I've never tried to impress anyone by bragging about my gearing.
 
Discussion starter · #43 ·
pimpbot said:
.... waiting for somebody to chime in with 'HTFU and pedal' ... 'lose some weight, fatash' or some other stupid advice like that.

Duh! Doing that already! ... still need the crazy low gear.
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Yeah, let the 145lbs stick leg weenies go ahead with this crap Ive heard it all before :p Whats funny is Im 195lbs about 9% BF, Deadlift 415 and squat 375+

Its still a whole different game when your carrying weight (even muscle weight) up a steep climb fully geared up.

Kinda like the big muscular guys trying to swim... They huff n puff then sink, while the little weaklings can float around all day... lol
 
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#47 ·
22x36 on stock rumblefish, but there are time I'm glad when I have gears that low on longer 20+ percent grades. Coming from a singlespeed, its a bit different to be seated so much.
 
Discussion starter · #48 ·
fos'l said:
The Action-Tek 20 tooth front chainring has worked well for me with a 12/34 rear when I needed very low gearing. Nino's cassette sounds excellent but @ 170/190 Euros ($300+, I THINK) for the "regular" and SL, respectively, I'll pass.
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I agree on the Nino's WAY too much $ for me personally.

Is the Action Tec the only ones making a 4 ring 64mm 20 tooth?
 
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#49 ·
craigsj said:
This is off-topic, but an interesting and specific claim so I'll bite. How well matched were the bikes? I'd like to know considering the specific efficiency claims Rohloff makes. Weight alone could not explain such a difference.

I'd post on topic but it's been covered so well already. I'd add that crank length and ring shape, if you use elliptical, can have some small effect as well. Figure out what you need, not what everyone else needs. Terrain has such a dramatic impact and that can't be judged online.
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My bike, a Bionicon Edison hydroformed, 2 rear wheels, same rim, a Mavic EN321, same tire, Nobby Nic 2.4, same tube. Shifted from a 36 x 16 tooth on the Rohloff back to my conventional Hugi FR hub with a sram 990 34-11 and Truvative Stylo with 22-32-44 rings.

Everything else was the same on the bike, just the wheels and shift mechanisms where changed out, and front derailleur was added back in. I only had one bike at the time. So, the only changes were in the drive train, everything else was as close to identical as possible.

Running a sun gear, and gear oil, and planetary gears in gears 1-7 on a Rohloff explains the difference. About an over all 10 to 13% loss in time, consistently, when I had the Rohloff. Climb was 3.8 miles long and about 1800 vertical feet of firerroad climbing, same starting point, same ending point for all test rides.

Times were 50:05 to 50:49 with the Hugi Freeride hubbed rear end , with 55:17 to 57:28 with the Rohloff. It was slow, too much resistance spinning all that junk inside the hub through a bath of oil.
 
#50 ·
JimInSF said:
Indeed and I'm not sure I buy this (Randy, have I seen you in other threads repeatedly bashing the Rohloff or am I mistaking you for someone else?), but I wouldn't dismiss it 100% either and will try timing myself out of curiosity. Then again, without swapping drivetrains out on the same bike, this seems impossible to measure even remotely accurately, and conflicts with the reports of most Rohloff users and my own experience, though I have not tried experimental timing.

A couple of points of interest though - I'm now on my second Rohloff, and the one I just got is less draggy feeling even new than the first is after over 10,000 miles and, in the top 7 gears, as quiet if not quieter than any derailleur setup. Some of this may be illusory and frame related - an aluminum, big tubed frame that amplifies the noise and vibration on the old, and with perhaps imperfect chainline, versus a Ti frame that hides it on the new with a perfect chainline - but it could also be that newer units have better tolerances or that small inline changes over time have improved the hub. Given how smooth my new one is even brand new, I can't imagine it to be a source of much inefficiency once broken in.

Secondly, and more importantly, I've never ridden a derailleur drivetrain on which I did not experience chain suck (as well as the other usual issues), and that includes the current generation X.0 and XX - and each time you throw or, as I did last month, break a chain from using a derailleur setup, whatever seconds you gained in months previous are instantly erased and more, not to mention the risk of going down when you lock up. I'll take the reliability of a Rohloff any day even if it were a little less efficient, and I seriously doubt, based on my experience to date and tests performed by others, that the efficiency difference is anywhere near the level asserted. Perhaps Randy got a bad hub or it was not properly installed.
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Get a flat on the rear of a Rohloff, versus a Hugi FR with a 10mm RWS, and count the time lost while you unpack a 17mm for the acorn nuts, disconnect the shift box, keep everything clean and not get any dirt in the mechanism while the wind and dust blows around you here in the South West . Not only did I install it myself, I built the wheel myself.

I invite you to bang out 1800 feet here on the local fireroad. In 4 years and over 10,000 miles of riding, only once have I snapped or broken a chain, so that point is moot, as I was meaning to change out that chain, but I kept putting it off, knowing full well it exceeded the wear limits.

Where I ride, a derailleur is a superior system for all uses. No one here races with a Rohloff, be it XC, 4X, downhill, whatever. No one in the Great Divide Race uses a Rohloff based wheel either. Lack of efficiency is why.
 
#51 ·
Thanks for the explanation on the Rohloff.

RandyBoy said:
No one in the Great Divide Race uses a Rohloff based wheel either. Lack of efficiency is why.
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I seriously doubt that's why. It appears there's little creative thinking in bike setup there aside from a couple fairings. What you see is basic weight weenie-ism so Rohloff would be a nonstarter if it were ever considered in the first place. In a race of that nature, efficiency over the course of 2500 miles is more important that what comes out of the box. Some of those riders even use single speed so it's hard to argue they're studying efficiency like you suggest. That race is a test of crazy hardcoreness, not who has the most technically ingenious and efficient bike.
 
#52 ·
RandyBoy said:
Get a flat on the rear of a Rohloff, versus a Hugi FR with a 10mm RWS, and count the time lost while you unpack a 17mm for the acorn nuts, disconnect the shift box, keep everything clean and not get any dirt in the mechanism while the wind and dust blows around you here in the South West . Not only did I install it myself, I built the wheel myself.

I invite you to bang out 1800 feet here on the local fireroad. In 4 years and over 10,000 miles of riding, only once have I snapped or broken a chain, so that point is moot, as I was meaning to change out that chain, but I kept putting it off, knowing full well it exceeded the wear limits.

Where I ride, a derailleur is a superior system for all uses. No one here races with a Rohloff, be it XC, 4X, downhill, whatever. No one in the Great Divide Race uses a Rohloff based wheel either. Lack of efficiency is why.
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Enjoy your derailleurs my friend. I don't break chains all that often either but I get chain suck regularly on every derailleur drivetrain I've tried and it sucks a$$, plus dealing with broken and ill-adjusting derailleurs and hangers, etc., none of which seem worth the tradeoff to me.

In any event, we all get it, you believe your install was good, and don't like the Rohloff. You're not going to win a lot of anti-IGH converts if that's your goal by injecting unsolicited bashing into unrelated threads, folks who are interested can try a system for themselves and their own use case, and either like them or don't. (Personally, your experience sounds sufficiently different from what others report that I'm guessing you either had a bad setup or got a bad or unusually draggy hub.)

Interesting you should refer to the GDR - someone running a Rohloff/belt drive setup finished the Tour Divide this year and actually posted here about it. This is now way OT though and no need to thread-jack; enough.
 
#53 ·
I can buy that....

craigsj said:
Thanks for the explanation on the Rohloff.

I seriously doubt that's why. It appears there's little creative thinking in bike setup there aside from a couple fairings. What you see is basic weight weenie-ism so Rohloff would be a nonstarter if it were ever considered in the first place. In a race of that nature, efficiency over the course of 2500 miles is more important that what comes out of the box. Some of those riders even use single speed so it's hard to argue they're studying efficiency like you suggest. That race is a test of crazy hardcoreness, not who has the most technically ingenious and efficient bike.
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Sorry, but in my experience, Rolhoff is draggy. I've ridden a few, and I can feel it at the pedals... Some gears more than others.
 
Discussion starter · #54 ·
Does anyone know whos making a 4 ring 64mm 20 tooth? other than Action Tec?

This just might get me where Id like to be Without spending huge$ on a LuckyNino.
 
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#55 ·
Okay, I did something stupid....

Stupid low gear, that's what!!!

I got one of those 36t cogs that go behind the XT cassette (and adds like 10 pounds!!) and drop one of the small cogs.

So now, I have a stupid low gear of 20x36.

I'm gonna hit Two Dollar Hill tomorrow and see how it goes. Somehow, I don't think I need a lower gear to clean that hill. I think I need more speed... that is, more leg power, momentum, and using a taller gear.

Pics later...
 
#56 ·
pimpbot said:
... Somehow, I don't think I need a lower gear to clean that hill. I think I need more speed... that is, more leg power, momentum, and using a taller gear.
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Bingo. IMO below a certain speed the rider's stability suffers, particularly in technical terrain. At that speed, "trials" type skills prevail, and too low of a gear might actually be a hinderance (not enough response from the crank to overcome technical spots). For example, in too low of a gear, the crank rotation may be too much, causing a pedal strike on a rock (or whatever), versus getting the same forward motion with less crank rotation (at the cost of exerting more power to turn the crank). For me, I'm typically out of the saddle already, so I prefer to have a meatier gear. YMMV.
I no longer care if I "dab", and frankly feel ridiculous spinning 100 rpm at 2 miles an hour - I prefer to dismount and jog up if it comes down to that. I guess I'm getting too practical in my middle age :D

On the parallel OT discussion on IGH's, I can see the "efficiency"argument against them for most racing applications (particularly 1-2 hour XC events), but I honestly feel most of it boils down to personal preference otherwise.
IMO it is worth considering that most (if not all) of the lab-based efficiency comparisons are based on clean drivetrains with perfect alignment, and much of the efficiency difference is negated when wind, drive train grit, tire pressure, terrain, etc are added into the mix. IIRC, a derailleur drivetrain is claimed to be 98% efficient under"laboratory" conditions (but not in all gears) and the IGH is 92% or so. I'll have to dig a bit to find those studies - perhaps others here may have them at hand.
To my legs it makes little discernable difference whether I'm on an IGH or conventional drivetrain.
 
Discussion starter · #57 ·
canyoneagle said:
I no longer care if I "dab", and frankly feel ridiculous spinning 100 rpm at 2 miles an hour - I prefer to dismount and jog up if it comes down to that. I guess I'm getting too practical in my mid
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If the hills your riding can be jogged up rather than climbed (sometimes on all fours) then I understand where your coming from and would agree in this instance.
 
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#58 ·
Ace5high said:
If the hills your riding can be jogged up rather than climbed (sometimes on all fours) then I understand where your coming from and would agree in this instance.
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Yep, mainly extremely steep stuff with alot of technical obstacles thrown in. A 23 inch low gear is sufficient (for me) to ride such a section, assuming I'm on top of my technical skills. If I dab and it is too steep/technical to get going again, I do the "cyclocross" jog. :thumbsup:
 
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