It's not that the novak is hard to gear.It just has limited gearing options.I loved mine at 14/68,12/68 and the esc would get to hot,and I'm sure any higher gearing would have had the motor hot.But in it's sweet spot I was always real happy with it.But there are people running the MMM combo everywhere from 18/68 to 25/68 on 4s,with no heat problems,which basically allows you to gear what your batteries will supply,or to how fast you want to go.