As the title says, just trying to work out whether 2 extra gears is worth the expense. Or get the 11 speed and then save for other goodies. I feel that the 12 speed is potentially the do all 5 year bike for me but both could do the job, advice appreciated.
https://www.edinburghbicycle.com/giant-revolt-advanced-2-2024-gravel-bike
Thanks!
by ValuableForever672
4 Comments
I don’t think 34 vs 36 on your largest ring is worth the £500 difference.
What are you going to use this bike for?
I have the starry night, it’s great.
Typically, the amount of gears is not what a bikepacker is looking for but the lowest gear. The 12 speed does come with a 36 tooth cog while the 11 speed is a 34.
The amount of gears is the range, which has two aspects: can you find your sweet spot, the gear which matches your cadence for a particular grade; and the shifting performance between gears. The smallest the difference in tooth count between cogs, the better the shifting, at the cost of a big cog. Road racers would use 12-19 or 12-21 cassettes in flatter racers.
The other aspect is duplicate gears with double chainrings. Skipping the cross chain combos, ie the small cog-small ring or big cog-big ring, there will be gear combos that are almost identical in gear ratio. Find a gear calculator to see which gears duplicate each other.
I’m unlikely to switch chainrings to go to the next gear. I stay in the big ring and the small cogs on descents and vice versa on the climbs. On flats, I’ll try to stay in the big ring.
Finally, you can switch cassettes around. I’ve converted a few bikes to mountain cassettes with 40t big cogs.