New to me (used) bike

[ChiliPepper / Kenny]

I'm virgin to the whole mtn bike scene so bare with me. Picked up a preowned Giant Warp DS - two. Its pretty sweet. I really wanted a full suspension bike, and got a great deal on it. I'm probably going to upgrade the shifters, brakes and gears. I was wondering if I could switch the gears to have more range, like a road bike. My girl has a road bike and wants me to ride with her, but I don't want to hold her up, or fall behind because i cant pedal fast enough.

[riverfever]

Technically you have more range on the mountain bike b/c your rear cassette is probably 11x32 or 11x34. Road cassettes will not have that big of a difference between the small and largest cog. They'll be more along the lines of 11x21, 11x23, 11x25, 13x26. What the road cassette will do is not make the jump from gear to gear seem so extreme. You can interchange gearing for road bikes with gearing for mountain bikes (for the most part).

Years ago when Specialized used to run fat tire criterium races, we would run road cassettes and even go so far as to run road cranks so we could have a 53 tooth front chainring. Obviously that setup would be silly for riding in the dirt though. Sounds like you are looking for a gearing combination that would allow you to not have to spin so fast to keep up with her? It's do-able.

Make sense?

[ChiliPepper / Kenny]

Technically you have more range on the mountain bike b/c your rear cassette is probably 11x32 or 11x34. Road cassettes will not have that big of a difference between the small and largest cog. They'll be more along the lines of 11x21, 11x23, 11x25, 13x26. What the road cassette will do is not make the jump from gear to gear seem so extreme. You can interchange gearing for road bikes with gearing for mountain bikes (for the most part).

Years ago when Specialized used to run fat tire criterium races, we would run road cassettes and even go so far as to run road cranks so we could have a 53 tooth front chainring. Obviously that setup would be silly for riding in the dirt though. Sounds like you are looking for a gearing combination that would allow you to not have to spin so fast to keep up with her? It's do-able.

Make sense?

No. But let me take a guess. Is the 11x23 the number of teeth on the front crank gear (11) times the number on the rear crank gear (23)?

[riverfever]

Sorry...lemme try again.

Your mountain bike has 3 chainrings up front. Most likely they are made by Shimano and most likely they are 22 teeth, 32 teeth, and 44 teeth. The smallest cog on the rear cassette of your bike is probably 11 teeth and the biggest could be as much as 34 teeth. If you take your rear wheel off the cassette is always labeled in a way like (11-34). This will let you know what the smallest and largest cogs are. Front chainrings are always marked as well.

Your g/f or wife's road bike could also have 3 chainrings up front (if it's a touring bike) but it may only have 2 chainrings. If its got 3 then it may have 30, 39, and 52 tooth chainrings. Her rear cassette could be a variety of things like I already said. If she has only 2 chainrings up front then those will most likely be 39, 53.

Mountain bikes are geared the way they are b/c we typically encounter obstacles on the trail that call for bigger changes in order for us to ride over them. That's why a mountain bike cassette will make jumps of 4-7 teeth between cogs. That would not be ideal on a road bike. When I race a flat course on the road I want a cassette that only jumps one tooth per cog (11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20). This way it's much smoother when I shift gears and I don't have to adjust my cadence (rpm's) as much.

So...she's able to go faster than you b/c she's either spinning a 53 tooth ring or a 52 tooth ring while you're stuck trying to spin your 44 at more rpm's just to keep up. If you both are in an 11 tooth cog in back (the smallest cog) and in the biggest chainring up front...and pedaling at the same rpm's...then she WILL be riding faster than you. You either have to up your rpm's to compensate for your gearing or change your gearing.

Is that better?

[Yota]

Perhaps you could figure out what gear she typically uses on their typical ride at typical speeds and you could change your front rings or rear cassette such that you have at least one gear at or near her? Just a thought.

For riding dirt, you'll want a huge range of gearing for sure, especially the low gears for climbing. Since your lowest gear will be much more important than your top gear on dirt, you may be able to get away with running a bigger top chainring on the front. You probably already have one ring on the back that is comparable to one of hers so that combo would allow you to pace her at a similar rpm.

Someone tell me how feasible that would be to do, though, because I haven't clue.

[jnschwie]

Just throw some road slicks on there and get some extra exercise. If she wants you to ride with her, she'll put up with going slower for a while.

[_CJ]

eh, just ride with her and see how it goes. She won't be hammering her 53/13 gear the whole time. Just be sure to air up your tires to the max pressure indicated on the sidewall, and pre-load the suspesion springs as much as you can.

I used to ride with a bunch of roadies while on my mountain bike in college. Never got dropped. Sometimes they got pissed because I didn't swerve around stuff in the road. I just road over stuff, and they had to dodge it. :flipoff2:

[ChiliPepper / Kenny]

Thanks for the response. That does make sense now. I think I'll try to figure out how to change the gearing up front so my high range is faster (less spinning)

[riverfever]

Careful...when putting on a bigger chainring, you'll have to get a longer chain. Then when/if you do ride off-road and need to go to the smaller chainring or larger cogs in back, you can end up having too much chain and that'll be bad.

[Bike Guy]

Kenny. give me a call if this is still an issue (since I type sooo slow & I'm not on a computer much) Monday and I can help walk you through the gear change process or can do the work for you since I own a Bicycle shop. Like one of the guy's said, you can ride a mtn. bike with a roadie, it just means you have to run a stronger motor (you). People use Mtn. bikes on long road rides all the time (MS150, Ride the Rockies, etc.), the bottom line is just go out and ride with her!
Randy