On 12/30/2020 3:23 PM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:

snip

Actually, I'm doing exactly what you initially suggested for non-racers:
I value the range of my gears, not the number of speeds. 11-28 instead
of 12-25 extends the range. It may change the number of speeds too, or
it may not. In my view, it does not, but I don't really care.

In my area folding bicycles are very common. Just in my own little
neighborhood I see bike fridays, Dahons, and Bromptons. My next door
neighbor has a higher-end Dahon, and they are not even really into
bicycling.

The big reason for folding bicycles is to not get bumped from the
Caltrain commuter train which limits the number of bicycles per train.
It used to be necessary to use a folder on BART which prohibited regular
bicycles during peak commute hours but they've since dropped that
restriction.

Even though the Caltrain bicycle capacity has gone way up over the
years, it's still not enough during normal, non-pandemic, times during
commute hours, on the express trains. Depending on the equipment, each
train can carry 72 or 80 bicycles. But because of the lack of viable
transit from train stations to housing-rich or jobs-rich areas, a LOT of
passengers want to bring their bicycles. Folding bicycles are much less
trouble because you don't constantly have to be jumping up to be moving
bicycles around so people can get their bikes off at the right station
and you don't have to worry about theft. Also, regular bicycles tend to
get banged up a lot on the train.

While the low gears on my Dahon Speed TR (SRAM Dual Drive 3x7) are
sufficient for most hills, the high gears leave something to be desired
in some cases.

On my old touring bicycle I have a 52/14 which is 97.57 gear inches and
on occasion I've wanted something higher, maybe around 105 to 110, but
back then the rear cluster on a touring bicycle was typically 14-34, and
the largest front chainring was 52.