8-speed bikes are capable, inexpensive bikes. But is an 8-speed bike enough? To answer this question we have to answer another question first: Enough for what?
Is an 8-speed bike enough?
An 8-speed bike is enough for the average cyclist. However, much more important than the total number of speeds is the gear range between them and the use case of the bike. A road bike may need more speeds than a mountain bike or commuter.
How many speeds do I need on my bike?
How many speeds you need largely depends on what type of bike you ride.
It also depends on your use case:
- Do you want to ride a hybrid bike to work?
- Are you going down hill some single tracks with your buddies?
- Or are you going for speed in road race competitions?
It’s also important to be clear of what bike you’re looking at.
- A kid’s bike usually has one to three speeds.
- A dutch bike often has three to five speeds.
- The sweet spot for a modern commuter bicycle is 5 to 9 speeds.
- A mountain bike will have anywhere between 8 and 24 speeds.
- A road bike on the other usually comes with anywhere between 10 and 27 speeds.
8-speeds are perfect for the average person.
Generally speaking, the average person is well-equipped with 8 speeds:
- Speeds 1-3 are for climbing and winds.
- Gears 4-6 are for cruising.
- And speeds 7 and 8 are for speed or for going down small hills.
That’s all the average person will ever need.
But when it comes down to it: Are you the average person?
Probably not, so let’s look at some edge cases.
Is 8-speed enough for hills?
If you live in a particularly hilly area with lots of ups and downs, you may want to opt for a 9 or 10-speed bike instead.
But a 10-speed bike is not automatically better than an 8-speed bike for hills.
What matters is to have a wider range of speeds: So essentially to take an 8 speed bike and add a lower speed and a higher speed on top of the existing 8 speeds.
This example would extend the gear range of the bike and is exactly what we are looking for. Here’s why.
You will need an ultra-low gear for those steep climbs.
And you will also need an ultra-high gear when you have reached the top of the hill and it goes back down (and fast).
Only you can decide how low and high those extra gears need to be.
But the general rule of thumb is:
The smaller the smallest cog, and the bigger the biggest cog on the rear wheel is, the wider the gear range of the bike.
Gear ranges, Schmear ranges.
If you don’t want to think about gear ranges, or just want to buy a bike that is guaranteed to work: Go for a 21-speed bike.
A 21-speed bike combines 7 cogs in the back (like a 7-speed bike) with 3 chain rings in the front. This gives you a total of 21 (3×7) gears.
- The smallest chainring in the front is great for riding uphill (or against the wind).
- The big chainring is great for riding downhill (or with the wind).
- The one in the middle is great for everything else.
The reason why I generally don’t recommend bikes with front derailleurs to most riders is that it is another moving part that needs to be maintained, tuned, and that can break.
It is also often found in cheap bikes, that are overloaded with features, but lack in quality.
But a good 21-speed bike is always going to be one of the most versatile options.
Just one word of warning: 21-speed bikes don’t have 21 unique speeds.
Instead, they have 21 total combinations.
Some of these combinations may overlap, effectively creating redundancy. Even if they may not be mathematically identical.
Some of these speeds will feel the same.
All of this adds extra weight and introduces more things that can break – without adding any real benefit over a purposebuilt drivetrain.
So please be clear on this if you want a 21-speed bike.
Are 8 gears enough on a mountain bike?
8 speeds are enough on a mountain bike, but just barely.
Having more speeds is usually better.
A lot of mountain bikes used to be 21 speeds with 3x drivetrains. But the trend in higher end bikes is going towards 1x drivetrains.
Most modern MTBs now have 9, 10, or 11 speeds.
One of the reasons is that the front derailleur can easily break, bend, or catch on the trail.
The less hardware you have on a mountain bike, the less can break.
It also reduces the weight a little. And small weight reductions can have a huge performance increase in biking.
The last reason against front derailleurs on MTBs is safety: In case of a crash (and 30% of mountain biking seems to be crashing), the fewer metal parts you have that you can scrape or catch your leg on, the better.
The last reason is that a 21-speed bike has some overlap in gears.
The 1×10 drivetrain has proven to be an efficient compromise for MTBs that can take you both up and down a hill.
Without the downsides of three-by drivetrains.
Is an 8-speed road bike enough?
Unfortunately: Probably not.
8-speed bikes are usually not fast enough for racing, as I explored in this article.
This is a type of bike where you may want to opt for a 14 to 30-speed bike.
The biggest driving force in your decision on how many speeds you need is the environment in which you ride.
An 11-speed road bike is usually enough for flat roads and light hills.
But if you plan to ride through rolling mountain roads, more speeds are often better.
Just keep in mind that one of the major considerations in choosing a road bike is its weight.
The more speeds you have, the more your bike will weigh. The more your bike weighs, the slower you are over a long distance.
But while it’s one of the lightest drivetrains, I would personally not consider an 8-speed bike to go fast for long periods of time either.
You are just going to miss some of the gear range for those ultra-high speeds.
And compared to a mountain bike, you only want the high-speed gears.
A double crankset with 20 speeds (2×10) may be a good balance for most riders.
But since road biking is such a specific use case it’s a little outside the scope of this post.
If you are interested in learning more, check out this Youtube video by GCN:
Next up, let’s look at what an 8-speed bike is actually great for.
The benefits of 8-speed bikes.
8-speed bikes are great. They offer enough range for most riders, are often inexpensive, and are reliable.
The lack of a front derailleur reduces maintenance over 2x or 3x cranksets.
And if we’re honest, they are probably fast enough. Please check out this post if you don’t believe me: How fast can a 7-speed bike go?
That’s how fast my 7-speed bike is. Now imagine what an extra gear could do.
Many 8-speed bikes are either older bikes or modern hybrid bikes.
These bicycles are great for running around town, meeting friends, and commuting to school or work.
If I could only have one city bike, it would be an 8-speed bike.
It may not be the perfect one-and-only bike, but it’s a bike that is so versatile and useful that I would not want to miss it.
In fact, we mostly overestimate how much bike we truly need.
Heinz Stücke, for instance, rode his 3-speed bike for over 220.000 miles. With around 100 lbs of luggage.
Summary: It’s all about range and your use case.
So, is an 8-speed bike enough?
It depends.
If you want to ride to school or work in a city: Yes, it’s enough and it’s probably perfect.
If you want to go mountain biking: A couple more gears would probably help. But it’s still serviceable and shouldn’t keep you from having fun.
I am not sure if you would be happy with an 8-speed road bike on the other hand.
Even when discounting the fact that 8-speed are usually hybrids that are designed to be anything but fast (in materials, tires, extras, and geometry), the gear range on an 8-speed bike is probably too limited to keep up with anyone on a proper road bike.
But even then, one thing always holds true:
The bike you have is always better than the one you don’t have.
