Quote Originally Posted by dolcerider View Post
Thank you for the web site and to answer your question Sara, I have a triple but I'm not quite sure by what you mean by chain rub? If going to the large ring can increase speed on the flat then I can see the advantage, but you are pedaling harder- wear and tear on the joints, not to mention it must be exhausting to keep up for long periods of time. So for most of us non racers best used for short bursts only- like when the men are dropping you on a club ride?
I have chain rub pretty good in my small and middle rings with certain gear combinations. Basically it's when you're cross-chaining and the chain is at an angle where is starts rubbing. You can definitely hear it...you'll know it if it happens. This is not a desireable thing, so you want to find different gear combinations to avoid it. I can only use about 4-5 gears on my small ring and 6-7 on my middle before this starts happening. I like to just stay in my middle ring if I can, but I use my small ring a lot too! I really don't use my big ring very much at all. I've just experimented with different gear combinations and found that ocassionally, it's kind of fun to use the big ring if I'm feeling a need for speed.

Here's an example from my ride today...I was on a low-traffic road with a 45 mph speed limit and I knew I'd be going gently downhill for approximately 3 miles. I was wanting to go kind of fast and coasting was only bringing me up to about 16-17 mph. I wanted to pedal, but I "ran out of gears" so to speak with my middle ring. My chain was rubbing and my cadence was so high I was bouncing in the seat. So I switched to my big ring and I could pedal up to about 23-25 mph. It wasn't difficult to pedal because I was going fast. Not exhausting at all. Now, if I had been going a lot slower, then it would've been like you said...really hard to pedal, slow cadence, wear and tear on joints, etc. Even on flats, I generally do not use my big ring. I am more comfortable with a higher cadence and I don't really "mash" unless I'm in my granniest of granny gears and a hill is so steep that I have no other choice.

Isn't this whole gearing thing crazy? After 1,000 miles, I finally really feel like I'm comfortable with the gearing on my bike. I sort of intuitively "know" what gear I'm in. When I'm climbing a big hill, I know how many gears I've got left before I hit that super duper granny gear. And of course, when my chain starts rubbing, that's a great hint that I need to change rings!