tomato paste
Active member
I'm looking to buy my first mtb, which will also be electric. I don't have any mtb experience, but have some city and road bike experience, and have ventured off into the local trails enough to recognize the necessity of a suspension system. I live in southern Germany near the black forest, and plan to ride on trails, fire roads, and take tours of the local area on gravel and pavement. Many of the surrounding villages have trails with long gentle hills that are paved or well maintained gravel, but connected by other short, rocky, undeveloped trails. My goal is to connect long sequences of these trails.
In my case, I'm thinking having a larger gear range would be beneficial, as its easy to exceed 25km on these gentle slopes on a road bike, so I would like a high high gear... But there are often steep, short climbs, requiring a low low gear... and I would prefer to have just 1 chain ring.
I see the Canyon Spectral: On and Commencal Meta Power with 12 speed SRAM Eagle NX, but, as a price sensitive consumer, is the reduced gear range of a less expensive 10-speed good enough for what I'd like to do, considering that we have a motor? My fear is topping out at 25km/h on a gentle 2km long slope and not having a gear high enough to continue accelerating after motor cutoff due to friction. And the same fear works on the opposite end, say I have that high high gear by selecting the appropriate chain ring, will the motor be able to compensate for the loss of a low low gear on very steep climbs? Or, are my fears unfounded, and 10, 11, 12 all provide sufficient gear range?
In my case, I'm thinking having a larger gear range would be beneficial, as its easy to exceed 25km on these gentle slopes on a road bike, so I would like a high high gear... But there are often steep, short climbs, requiring a low low gear... and I would prefer to have just 1 chain ring.
I see the Canyon Spectral: On and Commencal Meta Power with 12 speed SRAM Eagle NX, but, as a price sensitive consumer, is the reduced gear range of a less expensive 10-speed good enough for what I'd like to do, considering that we have a motor? My fear is topping out at 25km/h on a gentle 2km long slope and not having a gear high enough to continue accelerating after motor cutoff due to friction. And the same fear works on the opposite end, say I have that high high gear by selecting the appropriate chain ring, will the motor be able to compensate for the loss of a low low gear on very steep climbs? Or, are my fears unfounded, and 10, 11, 12 all provide sufficient gear range?
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but basically unless you going up ultra steep inclines, any of the system 10/11/12 will work fine. Obviously the 12 speed will give you the best range of gears, but it hardly like your talking about racing where every joule of energy counts. So 12 speed if you have the money is nice, as it will have the highest top gear (10T), 11 speed is the great compromise and 10 will be cheapest but have 'slightly' larger jumps between the gear than the other 2, but considering we were happy to 9 speed for years don't panic that you buying the wrong thing, they all work. Then remember you can change your front sprocket too, which is a much cheaper way to adjust your range, if you find yourself struggling. Just get on and buy that bike!
