Been riding MTB's since 1988. Always been concerned with gearing setups especially during racing days. Recently bought an EMTB to ride with some younger friends just so they didn't have to wait for me for too long ( I only have 40% lunbg function).
So gearing became reasonably important.
I mostly ride my analogue and ride that 36x10-51. I also clip in so my power delivery and cadence will be different from the flat pedal brigade.
My Giant ( insert ridiculously long set of words for name) eMTB is lightweight smaller battery carbon frame . It came with 10-52. I ride almost exclusively on eco with the power turned down to 20Nm and the launch about the same level. I quickly discovered that the 10-52 was hardly used for the majority of riding and being a bit of a weight weenie I changed to 10-45 cassette set. We have some extremely steep sections ( ie hard to even walk up them) , but even that is doable with the 45 just by switching the power up to the next level until most of the climb is done.
( for my local trails) that an 8 speed with the 10-45 range would do the job perfectly well.
If you consider why we have slowly increased the NUMBER of gears ( as opposed to the range), it is becase humans have a relatively narrow efficient range of rpm at which they are efficient. That is above and below that range we produce less torque. The whole point of the motor is that it extends the area under the torque curve we produce up AND down. That should mean we need less gear overlap, so less gears over the same range.
Because of the way power is delivered from pedalling, flats will need more gear divisions than being clipped in , but still way less than we have with 12, or even 10 speeds.
