Gear Ratio For Cruiser?

Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
May 11, 2022
Messages
211
Reaction score
457
Location
Tucson, Arizona
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
So, Tucson has some relatively flat areas, but the are a surprising number of hills here. Long, looooong gentle hills. Steep shorter hills. All kindsa hills. Just in case anyone is curious, I hate math...
So, do I need a gear ratio lower than 2:1/44T:22T? and if so, does anyone make a 26T cog? I am not having any luck finding one online.
Or am I doing this backwards?
The crankset is a 44T.
Thanks for any help.
 
44/26 would be 1.69
36/22 might be easier to do and comes in at 1.63

I spin a nice easy 36/22 on my Showboatin build from last years RBBO. Takes me everywhere I need to go with ease and still allows me to grind up the bridges in our area
 
Thanks Cap. At the moment I have a 44T. I may change the crankset in the future, but the price on this one was to good to ignore, lol. (free form OddJob) I found a 24T cog on amazon....
1.83:1 doesn't sound like a huge improvement over 2:1.
 
Meaning....? Is that pedaling really fast to cruise?
meaning you might seem like you are spinning a lot for the forward momentum it provides. your top speed will be drastically reduced
 
Using my Velo 7 I noticed I lost some top end and have to pedal faster on the top end. My knees were hurting some so I was trying help my dead start acceleration. That is where I notice the knee pain.
 
I have mags, so that's not going to work. For a future build, however, I Do want a 3 speed/drum brake hub....
Lol. I am not even done with THIS build, and I am planning my next one....no, wait, the one after that...no...the one after THAT...
 
It has been my experience a single speed bike is gonna be a compromise.
Someone on here once said,"If it's a little to hard to pedal up hills and a little to slow on the flats your gearing is about right."
A lot goes into the calculation, avg speed, tire size, design and inflation pressure, bike design and how it suits you. Added variables are where you ride, road surface, hills and wind.
Also your personal "Style" of pedaling cadence, "Spinner" = fast, "Clyde" = slow, or somewhere in between.
Your personal level of fittness also impacts this - I modded one of my first cruisers from 46 t front sprocket to a 36 t to make it easier to pedal, after a year of riding I swapped the 36 t for a 48 t for a much higher gear ratio.
Maybe you can borrow a multi speed bike and ride your usual route and experiment with gears to see what works for you...
 
I agree on the "tire size" and design variant. I recently switched from my preferred semi slick hook worm type tread to an OEM "diamond" tread because of availability. The diamond tread tire is slightly taller and has more surface contact. The extra force needed to roll it is noticeable.
 
We used to set up adult trikes for use at various swap meets and car shows after they banned golf carts.
They were often held in rough fields, parks with rolling hills, and we often used them to carry crazy amounts of weight, such as car engine blocks, cylinder heads, and transmissions. A few were set up with mini trailers too.
All but one had 24" wheels, one got converted to 26" wheels and was built using the frame and fork from a Schwinn Typhoon attached to the rear axle of a Town and Country trike with custom 26" rims laced to modified trike hubs. (I made 36H flanges and hub centers to fit the stock Schwinn axles with set screws to secure the hub on the axle in place of the stamped key way.

Needless to say they needed a lot of help in the gearing area. We only used three speed models. Most had Shimano 333 rear hubs.
The normal gearing on a 24" trike was a 36t front sprocket and a 24t rear cog. This worked well on the 24" models but the larger wheels needed ore help and I hunted down a 26t rear cog for that one. It worked but third gear was almost never used. It needed a lower ratio.
The 36x24 gave a 1.50 ratio, the 36x26 was 1.38. One of the guys trash picked a single speed department store trike and its original 44x20t configuration was horrible. The bike used an odd ball freewheel in the middle of the right rear axle, basically a welded in place BMX single speed freewheel. There was no easy way to change the rear cog.
I used a 36t front sprocket and since it was a fixed speed model I ended up taking the rear freewheel apart on the axle, then I TIG welded a single 30t rear cog over top of the original 20t cog to get a 1.20 ratio. That worked but even then could be a bit hard to pedal up even minor hills over distance.

(That rear freewheel eventually failed, breaking a few of the internal pawls and locking it up as a fixed gear, this all happened on a long downhill run while attached to a trailer, the guy riding it laid into the only brake, the front caliper which grabbed for a bit then the cable pulled out of the clamp and he had no choice but to ride it out. The trailer was carrying four 8 gallon jugs of racing fuel. We were watching from behind laughing so hard we had to stop and watch what we thought was going to be a hilarious wreck. All we saw was the extra long BMX cranks spinning like propellers and him with his legs lifted way clear of the spinning cranks. He somehow managed to ride it out, he even managed to navigate a slight curve heading back down toward the pits. We were really expecting him to end up in a drainage ditch off to the left when he hit the curve. He finally figured out a way to drag one foot enough to get it stopped once on flat ground. One of the other guys hopped on it and showed him how he should have just used his foot behind the front tire to stop the trike and managed to wack himself in the calf with the pedals while do so.)

35 years later and that trike is still hanging from the ceiling in that guys shop. I took that freewheel apart and I don't think it failed due to the welding of the sprocket, I think it was just too light duty for the task at hand and the super low gear ratio and torque it was seeing pulling a lot of weight. None of us were lightweights then either.


On my Nishiki 26" Pacific cruiser I've got a 46t x 22t combo (2.09 ratio), which works fine for the fairly flat roads around here but if I were still living where there were hills, I'd likely want a much lower ratio. Speed wise it goes fast enough for what it is and having only a coaster brake, its just fine.
(Its got no provision for a front caliper). If i were to need to ride where there are hills, I'd likely take one of my bikes with a three speed SA hub and a 42x20 ratio. which when combined with the low and intermediate gears in the hub make for a pretty easy climb on most hilly roads. (About a 2.10 ratio in high gear).
I tend to stick to flat local roads and on occasion the boardwalk or park trails with my cruiser. If i want a workout I'd go to the gym.
 
55 Gear Inches is how I normally roll on personal cruisers.

https://www.wolftoothcomponents.com/pages/gear-chart
Though I'm not affiliated with Wolf Tooth, they are a personal favorite of mine with anything they make, Three reasons; obviously solid R&D aka not making unsuspecting customers their R&D department, durability and Made in USA. Yeah, sexy too but that doesn't really matter compared to the above reasons.
 
Cousin Ravenshurst:
Horsefarmer gets it right. With all the variables involved, the only way to tune things to your needs is to get on the road and listen to your legs. Have fun!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top