Single Speed Gearing

Often when talking about gearing a singlespeed, the expression "two to one" comes up. Beside the fact that this is a meaningless statement, it implys that the coice of gears is based on easy math rather than real decisions. Let's look at this.

Ratios

Here is a table of gear ratios with the more common gearing choices highlighted for off road riding, single gear, 26" wheel.


As can easily be seen, a great variety of gears exist within the 2:1 and 1.7:1 range.

Personal Selection

Personaly, I am running a 34/19 gear (1.789). We do a lot of climbing where I live, and I'm overweight and not the strongest climber. I would love to go up to 24/18 (1.889) or 32/17 (1.882). That would help my downhill speeds a little if I could handle the gear on the climbs, but with mud season coming, I may even have to drop to 34/20 depending on power losses. We will see.