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Screen Shot 2017-05-11 at 12.43.50.pngCycling App of the Week: Bike Gear Calculator
What is it?
Bike Gear Calculator is a quick way to compare different gears on your bike and on setups you’re considering, and for seeing how fast you’ll be travelling in a given gear at a particular cadence (pedal revolutions per minute).
You just add details about your bike and all the maths is done for you. Of course, you could do the calculations yourself, or use something like Sheldon Brown’s Gear Calculator, but this app makes things fast and simple.
A free version of the Bike Gear Calculator is available, with £1.99 getting you a more advanced edition.
What makes it unique?
There are quite a lot of gear calculator apps out there but what makes this one especially useful is that you can just spin the chainring and sprocket graphics to the relevant positions, and adjust the speed and cadence settings via little sliders on the side of the screen. The ability to compare two different gears alongside one another is handy too.
Say you’re trying to decide between a road bike with a 53/39-tooth standard chainset and a 12-28-tooth cassette, for example, and 52/36-tooth semi-compact chainset with a 11-28-tooth cassette. The Bike Gear Calculator app will comparing the top gear (or any other gear) in each, expressed in various different ways including gear inches, gain ratios, development metres and your speed at a given cadence.
You can also create complete gear charts for your bike that you can store or share by email.
How can it help me?
This app can help you work out the best setup for your bike. If you’re struggling to get up hills with your current components or you find your cyclocross bike overgeared, how much difference will changing the cassette make compared to swapping the chainrings? You can check out the results of the various options open to you in seconds.
The app tells you how fast you’ll be going in a chosen gear at any cadence you choose, and you might use this information to inform your riding technique. It can tell you, for example, that if you’re in the 53-tooth outer chainring and the 23-tooth sprocket, using 700 x 25 tyres and pedalling at 90rpm, you’ll travel at 16.2mph (you can switch to km/h if you prefer).
If you want to maintain that speed when you drop to the 39-tooth inner chainring, you can select the 17-tooth sprocket and pedal at the same cadence, or go to the 19-tooth sprocket and pedal at 100rpm, or go to the 21-tooth sprocket and pedal at 111rpm.
If you’re a time trialist or you take your Strava KOMs very seriously you could even use the app to help plan your next assault. Want to average 22.1mph and your preferred cadence is 90rpm (same wheels as above)? Your best gear, assuming consistent terrain, would be 53 x 17 or 50 x 16.
Where can I get it?
The Bike Gear Calculator is available in both the Play and iOS app stores.
Jack has been writing about cycling and multisport for over a decade, arriving at road.cc via 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. He worked across all areas of the website including tech, news and video, and also contributed to eBikeTips before being named Editor of road.cc in 2021 (much to his surprise). Jack has been hooked on cycling since his student days, and currently has a Trek 1.2 for winter riding, a beloved Bickerton folding bike for getting around town and an extra beloved custom Ridley Helium SLX for fantasising about going fast in his stable. Jack has never won a bike race, but does have a master's degree in print journalism and two Guinness World Records for pogo sticking (it's a long story).
Latest Comments
- don simon fbpe 2 hours 16 min ago
Poor decision for Eurosport to repeatedly show the crash before knowing the outcome. Not cool.
- Daclu Trelub 2 hours 27 min ago
In a perfect world, we'd have a measure of how easily distracted someone is, as part of their driving test....
- Sredlums 2 hours 54 min ago
These products are nothing but ridiculously expensive and superfluous, and they bring nothing but bragging rights....
- Daclu Trelub 3 hours 10 min ago
How does Mr Lucy tell you he's a bit of an arsehole without telling you he's a bit of an arsehole?
- Daclu Trelub 3 hours 13 min ago
Of course they are, and not so different. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09B662CDN?crid=34M42BETAMFT0&th=1 The bugger's got four versions up now!
- squidgy 3 hours 30 min ago
At least the van driver was nowhere near the stationary cyclist.
- OldRidgeback 3 hours 33 min ago
The BMX racers are also no longer being supported. Kye Whyte said he's lost his GT sponsorship. It also looks like GT will no longer make BMX bikes.
- hawkinspeter 4 hours 22 min ago
The people causing traffic jams complaining about the traffic jams
Add new comment
17 comments
"You're making a classic old timer's mistake. Actually riding a bike!" ......are you sure?
lots of peddling of products on here and sometimes people are pedaling bikes or quite often just peddling pedal bikes
useful app' if you've pedalled so far you have no internet access as plenty of online calculators
Not everyone has a wallchart from the 1970's. I've used this app for a few years and it's really useful. I don't know why there's a queue of people wanting to rubbish anything and everything here.
I think this is like the 2 (oft photocopied) paper tables out of 'The Cycling' in the 1970's thats on my (and everyone of vintage's) garage wall?
One gives the inches the other the speed off the inches and cadence.
I havent had to plug them in, they work 24/7.
And you'll get a lot more out of your time spent on the computer by learning how to use a computer!
When peddling is difficult I change down a gear or two, when it is easy I change up a gear or two, when it is ok I don't change gear. I've never really worked out how calculating inches of gearing or any other unit really helps with that process.
I'm an engineer, maybe I should find it more interesting than I do.
You're making a classic old timer's mistake. Actually riding a bike! Trust me, you'll get a lot more out of your chosen pastime by spending more time on the computer.
You're making a classic old timer's mistake. Actually riding a bike! Trust me, you'll get a lot more out of your chosen pastime by spending more time on the computer.
You're making a classic old timer's mistake. Actually riding a bike! Trust me, you'll get a lot more out of your chosen pastime by spending more time on the computer.
Your making the classic newbie's mistake - hitting the post button without watching what your computer is doing.
Does it make a satisfying whirring noise, Col Collective stylee?
If so I could play with it for hours.
My phone came fitted with one. It's called a calculator.
Good app..... I use it all the time to be able to show customers what their gear selection actually means to them....
Something missing - Like the price - £1.99 for IOS on the App Store?
Those who know how this stuff works can do it all on a spreadsheet - I know because I've made such sheets in the past; but the spreadsheet is a lot of work, doesn't have nice graphics and isn't so easily understood by those who don't already have some knowledge.
On balance £1.99 seems a small price to pay if you can benefit.
[Cough] Third paragraph.
There appears to be something missing here
Oh, tha type of bike gear!
I thought it was going to work out how much tat I have to buy this month and how to hide it....