Is this bike a 24 speed?

[davester]

You are asking the wrong question. The number of theoretical gear combinations is completely irrelevant. There are only two important factors: 1) Do you have a high and a low gear that fit the range of conditions you will encounter; 2) Are the jumps between gear ratios relatively low so that you don't bogged down with too much effort during an upshift. When riding, you would never use every single combination of gears. You use the front three chainrings as a low, medium, high range and just use the rear cluster to fine tune each of those ranges. Simple, see.

Currently, my commuter bike has 21 theoretical combinations (although I probably only use about 17 of them), almost as many as the bike in question, and given the hills on the way to and from work (up to 19% grade), that barely fills the bill.

[testcase]

My Montague Paratrooper Pro has 27 speeds AND, an added electric hub.



This is America; more is better! :villagers:

[Octave Doctor]

My current MTB. has 21 speeds, the one before 18. Mostly, I only used 5 or 6 of them for where I ride now. When I was younger and riding up to 25 miles/day, I only used 5 or 6 then, just faster ones.

[ScottG]

My guess is that this would be a great bike for casual weekend riding, and quite a lot more if you got more into cycling. Totally agree with divested above- think of the three front chain wheels as high medium and low. In fact, my commuting bike has the same tooth number as on this Bianchi- it really offers quite a wide range. On my bike I rarely use the low range- in the snow, going uphill, with winter tires on or on the odd accession that I am riding uphill on a rough track. The highest gears are for my summer tires, blasting along on good roads. So- 24 gears gives you the flexibility and smooth steps between those extremes.

cheers

scott