gearing for indoor

[augern1]

What kind of gearing are you using on the indoor I am new to this Have a 24" cruiser I will be racing Can you help me out THANKS Augern1

[mervin]

aug,
It all depends on a couple of things like the size of your back wheel but to help you out you can go to truebmx.com and they have a gear chart that shows what the ratio is. also you can ask ian and heather @ the performance bike parts trailer at the race they could help. i run a 38- 17 on my cruiser and i think it's a 53 on the chart but been thinkin about goin to a 39- 17 or maybe a 40- 18 which are all about in the 53- 54 range. hope that helped.

Micheal

[sspencer]

Hello Augern1!

That is exciting that you are going to start racing! How old are you? All of our older cruiser classes are chuck full of super nice guys so you will be well received.

Being that you are new to racing you might just want to try out your gear you have on first before changing things up. Getting comfortable on the track should be your first priority then as your skill builds you can assess your gearing situation. Once you get to that point gearing is a personal preference as not everyone is built the same and strengths and techniques vary. It is kind of like comparing V8's to 4 cyclinder engines and what gearing will benefit the type of torque applied. I can get all technical on you but the fact is that if you stay on one type of gear you will adapt to it. I run a 41/18 on my cruiser everywhere. Top pro's like Olympic silver medalist Mike Day runs a 46/17 on every type of track, UCI SX to tight indoor tracks. The human body is an amazing machine and can adapt to most anything it is trained to.

Forget about the gearing and go out and have some FUN!
Steve

[Jackie]

I agree with Steve. I spent a great deal of time and money when we first got started changing gears all the time from track to track. If it feels ok doing sprints up and down the street it should be fine at the track. Get comfortable with the bike first, the gearing can be fine tuned later.

[Diesel]

Gearing is personal preference. I don't care what anybody says, you got to change gears around till you find what you like. If you are old and slow like me, you'd want to be a little spiny on the indoors. I always go down a tooth myself. If your Cruiser has a 17 rear, run a 38 or 39 front. 18 with a 40 or 41 indoors. If you're old and slow like Matt, run a 50 front and 9 rear. Just kidding. Matt Spencer likes to run a tall gear. Personal preference. Running flats makes a difference vs clips. Maybe gear spinnier on flats. Outdoors at Rad with it's tall and steep starting hill, going taller is good. Before, when I used to race Rad outdoor. I ran 40-17 and Matt would be taller than that. Now, with the track the way it is, I've got to grab brake to many times so I just don't race there. No point in pedaling your butt off just to grab brake at the first "WALL." Then the second and third and so forth and so on. Track is great for Robby, but sucks for me! But we were talking about gearing weren't we.

Gear Charts are a good baseline, but are based on a single tire inflated diameter (ID). Tires do make a difference in gearing. I make a chart for all the tires we use. You can make small changes to gearing with the tire.

Formula is as follows. ID X FS / RS. Examples: Intense Microknobby 24 X 1.75 has an ID of 23.625, so 23.625 X 41 / 18= 53.81
A smaller tire with the same gear is spinnier. Such as a 24 X 1.50 Primo Vtrac has an ID of 23.315, so 23.315 X 41 / 18= 53.39 which is almost a tooth spinnier. Measure your tire, convert fraction to decimal and use the formula. Good way to do that is on the kitchen counter under a cabinet where you can put the wheel straight up and down. With a square, mark the cabinet and measure from the mark to the counter. Another point is that a 20 inch feels different than a 24 inch with the same numerical gear ratio and the same from a 24 to a 26. 24 will be spinnier than the 20.

But what the hell do I know.

Diesel

[sspencer]

But what the hell do I know.

Dan! You have been studying hard. You gave me high school math nightmares with your gear formulas

There is a definite science to getting down to the nitty-gritty when you play the "gear game". When you feel that gearing is a critical piece in your racing then you can look into applying the .15 and .25 gear variations. But if you are new to racing just come out and ride and have fun and when you start feeling competitive you can start to make the adjustments needed to help you progress.

I am just lazy and hate changning gears and will just run what I brung

Steve

[augern1]

Hey thanks for the info on gearing hope to see you out there at the indoor and it's my son who will be racing I might try it later depending on how it turns out he is 30 years old raced when he was a kid many years ago Hope to get the grand daughters involved Thanks again Augern1