The Path To More Gear Inches

My bicycle at the Titiwangsa Lake Garden with
the Kuala Lumpur city skyline, in mid noon :P

A window opened in the mid noon and I dove in. Weaved my way from Bandar Baru Sentul, through the traffic, then straight into the Titiwangsa Lake Garden. On the XDS FA-20 bicycle, the usual jogging time of 30 minutes around that huge puddle was easily halved. Awesome :D

The Shimano MF-TZ21 7 speed freewheel
on my XDS FA-20 bicycle. 

Anyway, I still felt I needed a wider gear inches range. The lower the gear inches, the better the bike could climb slopes, the higher the gear inches, the faster the bike could go on a level road; calculated by (size of chainring / smallest sprocket for top gear inches or biggest sprocket for bottom gear inches) x (the size if the bicycle wheel in inches). My current rear hub setup is a 7 speed 14-28T, giving me a low of 27 gear inches and a tops of 55 gear inches. I require somewhat of a 11-34T. Since most probably I am using a freewheel rather than a freehub with cassettes, that is going to pose a problem (note: a freewheel is a you screw the gears cluster onto the hub, a freehub cassettes is you can just take out the single 14T sprocket and replace it with a 9T sprocket). There are several options to upgrade my current gear setup.

The Sunlite 7 speed 11-34T
cassettes cluster.

The first option is to replace the current freewheel with a 7 speed 11-34T freewheel / freehub cassette cluster. This is the cheapest option. However, Shimano no longer manufactures 11-34T freewheels, so I have to replace them with a Sunlite 7 speed 11-34T cassettes. This is the cheapest choice since I do not have to change the rear 7-speed derailleur and gear shifter.

A bicycle using the Shimano
Capreo gearing set.

The second option is to change the entire gearing system - hub, derailleur and shifter to a Shimano Capreo. Shimano Capreos were designed for small wheeled bikes such as a my 16" so that it's gear inches could even match a full sized 26" bike. However, this move could cost even more than my bike itself. It is a good thing that my entire bike in factory setup is well below the MYR $1000 (USD $300) mark to begin with. And as far as I know at the time of writing this post, there are not many stock bicycles in Malaysia using Shimano Capreo gear set with a price tag below MYR $3000 (USD $900).

The Shimano Nexus gear hub.

The third option is also changing the entire gearing system - hub and shifter but to a Shimano Nexus 8 internal hub. Provided that this option is a cheaper alternative compared to opting the Capreo.

Hmm. Will be phoning bike shops around Kuala Lumpur for price quotations soon. I think my Outdooritis is getting worse :P

Hashtags: bicycle #bike #capreo #cyborg #cycling #foldablebike #foldie #foldingbicycle #foldingbike #nexus #saibog #shimano #shimanonexus #sunlite #xds #xdsfa20