A recent Pake Bikes advertisement in Urban Cyclist read, “Do you want it Fixed or Sixed?” They are selling six-speed bikes for in-town riding. Fantastic!
And really weird! It’s almost like we are re-living the evolution of the bicycle all over again. From fixed-wheel, to single-speed, to three-speed, to six-speed. What gives?
Maybe we are starting to feel the pull of George Miller’s classic theory “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.”
In his (recently controversial) paper published in 1956, Miller performed experiments to determine our ability to differentiate between magnitudes of stimulus. For example, he would play a tone at varying volume levels and ask the subject to rate them in order of loudness. Another experiment had them rating saltiness. Another had them rating size.
The result was that, typically, we begin to lose our ability to distinctly differentiate between values at around seven choices (plus or minus two). This explains why, on your 30-speed road bike, many of the gears feel redundant. Your brain can’t perceive the varience between them. Even though we have reached this wonderful pinnacle of bicycle technology, our primitive little brain just doesn’t get it.
In addition to the documented science, my personal research has shown that bikes with a large selection of gears can lead to chronic “Shifter’s Remorse”. That’s the nagging feeling that, somewhere on that massive gear cluster, is the perfect ratio. The one that will make you more efficient. Or faster. Or more happy. This persistent doubt is enough to ruin anyone’s ride with endless shifting and searching.
Forget all that. Consider a six-speed. Just enough gears to be useful. Not enough to mess with your mind.
