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@willski
If you express the ratio of teeth on your chainring and cog as a fraction and then cancel down, then the numerator gives you the number of skid patches, as this is the number of positions the back wheel can be in while you've got the pedals locked. For example;
16/48 = 1/3 so there is one patch
17/48 doesn't cancel down so there are 17
19/54 doesn't cancel down so there are 19
20/54 = 10/27 which gives you 10