How To Choose Your Chainrings + Cassette – GCN’s Guide To Selecting Road Bike Gear Ratios

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Having the right gear ratios on your bike will make a huge difference to your riding experience. Here’s a quick guide to how they work.

Your gear ratios are defined by the size of your chainrings and the ratios offered by your cassette. Your tyre width also affects this to a certain extent, but by far the biggest influence us exerted by the chainrings and cassette. On a road bike you have two choices of chainset. Standard, which is commonly 53×39 and compact, commonly 50×34. Cassettes generally offer gears in the range of 11-25 or 11-28. In this video, Dan Lloyd explains how gear ratios are calculated and how you can use that knowledge to your benefit – don’t forget to SHARE!