Bicycling

And I believe it is still the case with race bikes and other "road" bikes. On my triple, used mostly in roads, I made the observations that I tend to use the low front gear in areas where I am mostly going uphill, the large front gear in areas where I am going mostly down hill and the middle gears on flat areas. If I am pulling a trailer, I tend to drop down a gear or two in the rear, but not in the front.

My point is when commuting going downhill, the Large Front gear is usable. On Rails to Trails, I rarely use the large gear, the grade up or down is to low to justify anything but the middle gears, but when I operate in roads with large sections of the road going mostly uphill or downhill, I tend to opt for the small front gear when going uphill, and the large front gear when going downhill. In one stretch of road I travel on, I end up using the large gear going down the grade, then to the front low gear after I make the turn at the bottom of the grade, for the grade then turns sharply uphill (After I had shifted to the smallest front gear and the largest read gear I end up walking the bike, it is a 12% grade at that point and I value my knees).

Yes, I shift from large front to small front skipping over the middle gear for the shift in grade is that quick.

That is one of the problems with living in the Appalachian Mountains, the mountains are all climbable in fact you can walk to almost all of the mountains standing upright. Thus they are also bikeable, but you have quick changes in grade on the roads in that area. In the West, they had enough brains NOT to build roads in such areas, but here in Pennsylvanian they had a habit of paving over any goat path they ran across. Thus we tend to like three front gears for we can use all three. Yes, I admit I rarely use the large ring on trails, but it comes in handy on roads, where I tend also to bike on with the same bike.