I'm a big fan of low, low gears. I have them on both my Atlantises; my Roadeo has pretty low gears too considering I never carry much on it. People always say to me, "I don't want lower gears because then I couldn't balance." I never understood that. I don't have a bit of problem riding at 2.5 mph for long periods of time when I'm climbing something ridiculously steep on one of my Rivendell bikes.
But now I understand. I thought when I bought my new Surly Krampus mountain bike I'd be able to climb even steeper dirt roads than I now can climb on my Atlanti. I thought, I have an absurdly low gear on the Krampus (15.6 inches, something like that), I have all the traction in the world, I can climb anything. But no. I'm finding that I climb *worse* on the Krampus. It's frustrating. There are dirt sections that I have no trouble on with the Atlantis, with smooth tires, that I can't climb on the Krampus with the knobbies. What's going on here? Front-end geometry? Wheel weight? Bottom bracket height? I'm beginning to think I should have bought the Surly ECR (like several people recommended) instead of the Krampus. Or maybe I just need to learn how to climb on this new bike. On the other hand, when I bought the bike I also thought I'd be able to go down steep trails that I'm afraid to descend on the Atlantis, and that has proved to be true. My husband took one look at my new bike and said, Wow, you have better traction on that than you have on foot. When I apply the brakes on a steep downhill, the bike *slows down* instead of skidding. -- -- Anne Paulson It isn't a contest. Enjoy the ride. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
