Gear ratio? What\’s that?

If you\’re brand new to multi-gear bicycles, all those gears can seem a little intimidating. What are they all for; and how and when do I shift gears?

Here\’s help. Of course, you don\’t have to be running non-stop gear ratio calculations in your head while riding. I, for one, would find it far too distracting; especially as math has never been my strongest point. If you do go for math, you can entertain yourself with both gear ratio and gear inches.

Practice soon makes shifting gears second nature. I side with the advice to stay off of the big ring if you\’re a beginning rider; it\’s too much stress on the knees. When I first tried the big ring, I could feel how much harder it was to pedal. It was so much harder that my earliest efforts were limited to a few seconds! I had to build up a little at a time.

Someone, I don\’t remember who, said that you should use your gears so much that you wear them out, unless you live and ride where it\’s absolutely flat. Well, you don\’t have to live in hill country to need to shift!

There are no natural hills where I live; but I wore out my road bike\’s original cassette after about 14,000 miles. I need to change gears to adapt to various wind conditions, if nothing else.

Okay, what\’s my gear ratio? Let\’s see: on my 50 chain ring and my 24 cog, that\’s 50 ÷ 24 = 2.08?