I've thought of this too but I have found the rhythm of the ride on a single speed or in the case of the soon to be Simple One, two speed, to be different than a multi geared machine. My own home built with two ratios ( 51 and 65) works on all but the steepest hills and I am 265 and 52 years of age. Granted the spin on the flats can be somewhat irritating but not when you consider the climbing you will be doing. In fact, I find myself welcoming it. I find that more effort is used in climbing and I climb faster. When I get to the downhill side I coast and spin easily on the flats. I took a local 15 mile route with many hills and decided I would do it in the 51 inch and though I would go nuts with the excessive spinning but it wasn't bad at all and kind of relaxing. I only changed to the 65 inch at the last flat portion of the ride and took my time. If I were on a multi geared bike I would have been shifting up and pedaling on the downhills and shifting down and grinding up the climbs expending equal amounts of energy all the time and riding no faster. I think the QB setup is faster to change ratios than my current ride and the option of a really low climbing gear on the flip side is attractive. With a 22 tooth freewheel you can get a 39 inch gear which isn't bad for most regular steep hills. If I can't climb a hill I stop and walk or rest and continue. Most of the time on my particular route, I stay in the 65 inch and spin up to 130 rpm when I want to go fast, which isn't often. Someone riding a multi geared bike might be frustrated with your different ride rhythm but for solo rides and flat to rolling ground it makes little difference.
On Nov 21, 7:50 am, "Thomas Lynn Skean" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, all! > > Does anyone have any experience with the sorta new Sturmey-Archer duomatic > hub? If so... Are they of reasonable quality (as opposed to being a novelty > or a fashion-gimmick or something intended for a department-store bike)? If > you have no experience but would venture an opinion, would you *expect* them > to be of reasonable quality? (I know nothing about the modern Sturmey-Archer > company or about low-gear-count IGHs at all.) > > Could you imagine one on a Quickbeam/SimpleOne? > > I like the idea of a singlespeed bike. But I expect that with my weight > (~240ish) and given that I have already flirted with slight knee pain, riding > a singlespeed bike very much would not be my favorite thing (or the smartest > thing) to do. Over time, I expect that launches would challenge my knees with > any gearing that I could contemplate cruising in. I understand that the > SimpleOne is designed to be more than just a singlespeed. But I know me; I > really can't see me hopping off the bike and moving the rear wheel whenever I > needed to exploit that fact. > > However, I've done some gearing arithmetic and have concluded that I might be > happy with the two-speed duomatic hub. I could imagine launching in "low" > (somewhat carefully) and then cruising in "high" (somewhat spinningly). But > the "carefully" and "Spinningly" parts would be generally "good things to do" > sometimes anyway. And, though I am in now way tired of biking the way I do > now, I am on the lookout for ways to "mix it up" so as to keep riding as long > as possible (think numbers of years, not distance per ride). I'm thinking the > duomatic might even prove a "gateway hub" to actual singlespeed riding > (theory being that if I keep riding in general, and sometimes a two-speed in > particular, I'll continue to get healthier and become less vulnerable to knee > pain as a result). I'm not remotely considering doing away with multi-speed > riding (why would I leave my home in Hillborne heaven?). > > I've had uniformly bad experiences with multi-speed IGHs in the past (7- and > 8-speed Shimanos of 5+ years ago). But I'm open to the idea that, with the > duomatic being a two-speed and with IGHs having perhaps improved as they've > become more popular in the mainstream since then, it might not give me > problems like those hubs of yore. > > Any thoughts? > > Yours, > Thomas Lynn Skean > P.S. > One possibility I'm considering is a completely cable-less SimpleOne with the > coaster-brake version of the duomatic. That's the way I often rode bikes > growing up; one rear brake, one rear gear. Though there'd be complexity > hidden in the hub, the rest of the bike would be as simple as it gets. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. 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.
