LexRides

[miss ability]

i know this should be fairly self-explainitory, but i have a very simple mind. i can't rightly wrap my small brain around this.

if you use a bigger (more teeth) chain ring in the front, it makes it easier or harder? and it is the opposite in the back, right?

so, if i wanted to make a more difficult ride, and i had a 52 tooth chain ring, would i use a bigger or small cog?

i know these questions are ridiculously obvious, but my mind is not very mechanical. in exchange for answering my questions, i can edit or write your thesis, especially if you are using MLA. my brain loves that stuff.

[brokebike]

to make it simpler, the closer the relation in number of teeth between your chainring and cog, the easier gearing you'll have. The further away those numbers are, the harder.

A 52t ring paired with just about any normal sized cog is going to be a fairly stiff gear... and the smaller the cog on the back is, the tougher the gearing will be... that's why 52t rings are pretty standard as the "big ring" on most road gearings, and that's also a pretty standard ring size for an actual track racing gearing.

Conversely, easier gearings (say for trail riding, hill climbing, or something like what we use in bike polo) are usually combos such as 32/18, 34/20, etc.
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[brokebike]

if you want to experiment more with different gearing choices, I like to use this web-based application to determine how tough or easy a gearing will be:
http://software.bareknucklebrigade.com/rabbit.applet.html

make sure you enter in your correct wheel/tire size and then you can search through all the gearing combos. I like to go by the gear inches number as a guide. To me, 72 gear inches is sort of like the boundary between easy and hard gearing. Anything higher than 72 in, I would consider pretty stiff, and appropriate for going really fast and giving your knees a tough workout. These would be ranges more suited for flat surfaces where you could build up a lot of speed.

68-72 gear inches are what I would consider normal, practical gear ranges for everyday riding in a city with topography like Lexington. If I were building up a single-speed or fixed gear, this would be the range I would try to stay in.

Anything lower than 65 gear inches or so would be more suited for developing a good spinning workout, or for hilly, technical riding where your pedaling needs to be easier.
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