Love my Lenton....but

[dnc1]

The British always seemed glued to high gearing. The stock gearing on a 3-speed or 5-speed internal gear hub bike was 48-18, even on the 28 inch wheel DL-1. The club bikes had nice, medium-ratio hubs, but then the medium ratio was applied to 48-18 usually, still pretty high if you have hills to climb. I haven't even bothered with an 18 tooth cog in years. I really like 46-22 on a 3-speed, but high gearing seems to have been universal for Raleigh.

My 10-speed Grand Prix has 52 and 40 tooth front chainrings, which offers a pretty good range. In a perfect world, I think I'd rather do 48-40 or 48-38.

This is why every british working man back in the '50's had legs like Sir Chris Hoy! Lol!

 

[LouB]

Got my Raleigh branded Suntour GVT derailleur and freewheel (14-32) today. Lovingly stripped the Benelux RD off and packed it up along with the Raleigh freewheel for future use. Now to install the new goodies, dial them in and get to riding these hills. I'll post pics when complete.

 

[bulldog1935]

I got more spanish cedar cigar boxes if you need them - great for stashing bike parts and fishing reels

 

[wrongway]

The British always seemed glued to high gearing. The stock gearing on a 3-speed or 5-speed internal gear hub bike was 48-18, even on the 28 inch wheel DL-1. The club bikes had nice, medium-ratio hubs, but then the medium ratio was applied to 48-18 usually, still pretty high if you have hills to climb. I haven't even bothered with an 18 tooth cog in years. I really like 46-22 on a 3-speed, but high gearing seems to have been universal for Raleigh.

My 10-speed Grand Prix has 52 and 40 tooth front chainrings, which offers a pretty good range. In a perfect world, I think I'd rather do 48-40 or 48-38.

Do you find that the 46-22 gearing makes the bike....sluggish or does it provide better hill climbing while being fairly speedy?

 

[SirMike1983]

Do you find that the 46-22 gearing makes the bike....sluggish or does it provide better hill climbing while being fairly speedy?

It makes high gear your cruising gear. Low and normal work as climbers or headwind gears.

I would go 46 - 20 if you are not worried much about hills where you live.

 

[bulldog1935]

not to derail Lou's thread, but on my daughter's Nexus 8, I turned city gears into touring gears by adding 2 teeth to her drive cog and taking 2 teeth from her chainring - gave her 4 cruising gears to 85", and 4 climbing gears down to 25"

 

[SirMike1983]

I like having 2 different climbers for every cruising or downhill gear. I'm not sure there's a hard rule about it, but I follow that as a rule of thumb. I don't mind losing a little top end because I'm running original brake calipers on steel rims, which means it's really easy to out-ride your max braking power. If I broke 20 mph, I'd consider that pushing it on original brakes. But if you have the braking power to safely stop from a higher speed, then higher gear would work well.

My theory behind high gearing of stock bikes is that the shops would get a large number of returns if people "spun out" too easily. If someone buys a bike and it's hard to pedal, they probably just say "I need to get better at this". If someone buys a bike, spins hard and gets passed by everyone, they'll complain. At least that's part of my theory.

The worst offenders were the American-made balloon tire bikes. Many came stock in the 1930s with 52-18 equivalent gearing (skip tooth maybe, but same ratio). On a bike that already weighs 40+ pounds, that's nuts. They're fun to look at, but disasters from a gear/drive train perspective when you need to go uphill. I remember climbing some rather steep incline bridges over the local water treatment plant on one. It was brutal trying to power up those. Some of the coaster hubs are very well-manufactured though.

The English 3-speeds were next worst because they just said "48-18" and that was the ratio for many years. They later went to 46-18, which is marginally better.

Some of the early derailleur bikes from England also had some very high ratios, probably because they had club and competitive riders in their 20s-40s in mind.

There's no shame in dropping the gear ratio to something more manageable. As I said, I haven't run an 18-tooth rear in years. I have a couple 20s, a few 22s and even a 24 (Raleigh Sprite 5-speed).

 

[bulldog1935]

Here's her Nexus 8 drivetrain with 22t drive cog and 42T chainring
gear no. gain ratios/ gear inches

1. 0.53 / 27.5
2. 0.64 / 33.6
3. 0.75 / 39.0
4. 0.85/ 44.4
5. 1.0 / 52.2
6. 1.22 / 63.8
7. 1.42 / 74.0
8. 1.62 / 84.2

anyone should be able to sustain a 15% grade on that low, which happens to be what is necessary to get home

I set her up with this when she was 11-y-o - it was her first full-size bike.

 

[LouB]

I like having 2 different climbers for every cruising or downhill gear. I'm not sure there's a hard rule about it, but I follow that as a rule of thumb. I don't mind losing a little top end because I'm running original brake calipers on steel rims, which means it's really easy to out-ride your max braking power. If I broke 20 mph, I'd consider that pushing it on original brakes. But if you have the braking power to safely stop from a higher speed, then higher gear would work well.

My theory behind high gearing of stock bikes is that the shops would get a large number of returns if people "spun out" too easily. If someone buys a bike and it's hard to pedal, they probably just say "I need to get better at this". If someone buys a bike, spins hard and gets passed by everyone, they'll complain. At least that's part of my theory.

The worst offenders were the American-made balloon tire bikes. Many came stock in the 1930s with 52-18 equivalent gearing (skip tooth maybe, but same ratio). On a bike that already weighs 40+ pounds, that's nuts. They're fun to look at, but disasters from a gear/drive train perspective when you need to go uphill. I remember climbing some rather steep incline bridges over the local water treatment plant on one. It was brutal trying to power up those. Some of the coaster hubs are very well-manufactured though.

The English 3-speeds were next worst because they just said "48-18" and that was the ratio for many years. They later went to 46-18, which is marginally better.

Some of the early derailleur bikes from England also had some very high ratios, probably because they had club and competitive riders in their 20s-40s in mind.

There's no shame in dropping the gear ratio to something more manageable. As I said, I haven't run an 18-tooth rear in years. I have a couple 20s, a few 22s and even a 24 (Raleigh Sprite 5-speed).

Absolutely Ron. I recall my ballloon tire bike in the 50's and walking it up steep hills was just normal. Didn't even think of trying to ride it up them.

 

[bulldog1935]

I think you were replying to Mike. But my first bike, at 6, was a Sears Jetliner that was too big for me.
The Higgins on the right

But we lived in Mobile, and it was flat enough to ride it. I remember the asphalt there melting under the kickstand and letting it fall over.
We moved to a hill in Oak Hills Terrace (NW San Antonio) when I was 8, and I couldn't ride it anywhere. So dad sold it, and got me a Sears The Rail 5-sp derailleur bike (24" wheels), and it was freedom - I could ride it anywhere, and always left the driveway heading first uphill.

I was floored when I saw what my dad paid for this - the purple one.
You've met Stevo - we met in 6th grade, and rode our 5-speeds everywhere. We went to Pat Neff Jr. High, and climbed that giant hill on Evers Rd. every day.
My climbing legs have some muscle memory.
We also frequently crossed town, from home to Dibble's Hobby Shop, over by Jefferson High School.

ps - that's Steve's daughters in the photo above with my daughter - they grew up on kayaks and bikes together