Years of fixed gear riding have made me largely indifferent to high gears, so that even my derailleur bikes top out in the mid 80 inches -- top end (and low end) sacrificed for close ratios in the middle; an ideal gear pattern gives me ~5" jumps between 80" and 50", and the rest is gravy.
FWIW, I've hit 37 in a 75" fixed gear (46/15 X 24.5"), and 46 in a 96" derailleur (48/12 X 24") gear (both at the bottom of hills; the 46 while chasing an upstart Land Rover). OTOH, maximum lifetime whoo hoo top speed was 50 mph, downhill and eastbound, with a howling, raging westerly, on a mountain bike, coasting. On the preceeding uphill I was pacing a stray cardboard box at ~ 20 mph. On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 10:29 PM, Mike in WA <mikeshalj...@gmail.com> wrote: > +1 on the coasting downhills approach. It's pretty amazing how close to > top-speed (AKA "fast enough") you can get when you tuck in your knees and > elbows, get down good and low and just let gravity do the work. My days of > riding 110+ gear-inch bikes to go 35 mph on steep descents for 1% of my > mileage are over! I continue to be impressed by how much easier climbing is > when you don't have to think about shifting at all, it's just "easier or > harder?". > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
