I rode an old Takara touring bike with HS + G gearing for a while last year before I converted that bike to fixed gear, and I really liked it for the flat riding on my commute from Sacramento to Davis--as Sheldon said, it allowed for good fine-tuning of the gear depending on how i was feeling and the wind conditions, even with just a 6 spd freewheel. I only really took it on one hilly, unloaded ride in the Bay Area and i remember it being fine, although there was a large jump between grinding out the climbs in the lowest of the half step gears and dropping down to twiddle in the granny. I liked it enough to consider swapping the setup over to my other touring bike, but I haven't tried that yet.
However, I think the point is is that HS+G only really makes sense if you're running 6 or less gears in the back; play around with a gear chart and you'll find that with today's commonly available 7-10spd FWs/cassettes, you can get a much wider and more continuous gear range with a "conventional" triple. That being said, a proper 5 or 6 spd setup with HS+G would win you retro-cool points in my book. I believe Jobst Brandt rides with an HS (no G) setup, including his normal rides in the Santa Cruz mountains and his Alps tours. In some of his tour reports I remember reading that his low gear was something like 46x24. Tuff! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rbw-owners-bunch/-/SKyxzp08oR0J. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
