kserif: Skid Patches If you make a habit of doing “skip stops” you will wear your rear tire out considerably faster than if you use your front brake. This problem is exacerbated by certain gear ratios, because you may tend to repeatedly skid on the same section of the tire. Riders who plan to do a lot of skip stops should consider the ratio when selecting their chainring and rear sprocket. The mathematics of this is actually fairly simple: Simplify the gear ratio to the smallest equivalent whole number ratio. The denominator of the resulting fraction is the number of skid patches you will have on your rear tire. Examples: 44/16 simplifies to 11/4, so there would be 4 skid patches. 45/15 simplifies to 3/1 so there would only be 1 skid patch. 42/15 simplifies to 14/5, so there would be 5 skid patches. 43/15 can’t be further simplified, so there would be 15 skid patches. This is based on the assumption that you always skid with the same foot forward. If you are an ambidextrous skidder, and the simplified ratio has an even numerator or denominator, your number of skid patches will be the same. If you are an ambidextrous skidder, and both the numerator and denominator are odd, the number of possible skid patches will be doubled.
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kserif:

Skid Patches

If you make a habit of doing “skip stops” you will wear your rear tire out considerably faster than if you use your front brake. This problem is exacerbated by certain gear ratios, because you may tend to repeatedly skid on the same section of the tire.

Riders who plan to do a lot of skip stops should consider the ratio when selecting their chainring and rear sprocket. The mathematics of this is actually fairly simple:

  • Simplify the gear ratio to the smallest equivalent whole number ratio.
  • The denominator of the resulting fraction is the number of skid patches you will have on your rear tire.

Examples:

44/16 simplifies to 11/4, so there would be 4 skid patches.

45/15 simplifies to 3/1 so there would only be 1 skid patch.

42/15 simplifies to 14/5, so there would be 5 skid patches.

43/15 can’t be further simplified, so there would be 15 skid patches.

This is based on the assumption that you always skid with the same foot forward.

If you are an ambidextrous skidder, and the simplified ratio has an even numerator or denominator, your number of skid patches will be the same.

If you are an ambidextrous skidder, and both the numerator and denominator are odd, the number of possible skid patches will be doubled.