Tandem Cycling - What gear (chainwheels/sprockets) on a tandem?

My most important question right now is:

What gear (chainwheels/sprockets) do you all use on your tandem?

Our tandem was equipped with a 22-32-42 chainwheels and what I had anticipated came out when we did our first trip:
42 (much) to small and the difference of 10 teeth between the top- and the middle wheel is to large.
I could live with a, say, 46 top wheel, but I heard that the Shimano 104/64 (4 arm) format does NOT include a middle chainwheel of, say, 38 which would make the difference between the two top wheels OK.
What to do? Buy a complete (5 arm 130/74 or 135/74) crankset with more freedom in chainwheels?
The 8 speed exave (reversed functioning of rear derailleur) would be worthless then?

If you are riding off-road you will need those gears. If you are riding on pavement you would want to swap out the right-side (drive) crank arm for a road crank arm. You would have to reposition and adjust the front derailleur. Standard road chain rings are 53/42/30 or thereabouts. You could also swap out the cassette for one with an 11 tooth cog but I think you would still be under geared with a 42/11 top gear on the road.

We utilize a 54/42/30 with 11/34 cassette. That give us a top gear of about 132 inches.
While your setup would be fine for off-roading, for primarily on-the-road riding you'll need some bigger chainrings/smaller cassette cogs.
A 42x11 cog combo would still give you just under a 100 inch gear ratio.
A 46x11 combo would give about 108.75 gear inch combo. Still a bit too low for most road tandem setups.
Galen's solution sounds the more logical one, although you may need a different front derailleur too.
The only other idea: really UP your spinrate and coast down all the hills!

What gear (chainwheels/sprockets) do you all use on your tandem?

Road: 54/44/32 with 12x27t or 12x32t cassette

Off-Road: 44/34/22 with 12x32t

My most important question right now is:

What gear (chainwheels/sprockets) do you all use on your tandem?



Our Cannondale RT came with 52/42/30 chain rings and 34/12 on the rear. It works well for our team. We spin out at about 45 MPH, and it climbs real well. The hardware's pretty good, but sometimes the software is a bit glitchy!

If you are riding off-road you will need those gears. If you are riding on pavement you would want to swap out the right-side (drive) crank arm for a road crank arm. You would have to reposition and adjust the front derailleur. Standard road chain rings are 53/42/30 or thereabouts. You could also swap out the cassette for one with an 11 tooth cog but I think you would still be under geared with a 42/11 top gear on the road.

Agree. We ride mainly off road and use 48/36/24 with a 9spd 11/32 cassette. We have tried the conventional mountain gearing of 44/32/22 and 12/34 but all the lower gearing gave us was a slower speed and we bent the 34 sprocket- It was an XT and not man enough for us. The gearing we have will take us up 15%+ offroad hills with the ocasional short 20% or more. It has to because that is the gearing we have- Our advantage is that the higher gearing does suit us and it is surprising how often we use that 36/11 on the flat bits offroad-the 48 only gets used downhill.
We also do road rides but never with other tandems as we never meet any- or if we do on the organised rides, we do not stay together long. We ride with the good road club riders and stay with them, although we struggle on the long uphills. We rarely use 48/11 though. we are generally one or two sprockets lower- until gravity takes over. 48/11 is used to build up to around 40mph and then it is coasting time.

Admittedly we have a Good compromise gearing- On the road we only run out of gears downhill at high speed- but offroad it suits us perfectly

It may be possible to get a 46t for your crankset- Depends on where you shop- other than than that- Look for a solo bike crankset that will match your existing set and just change the Drive side crank. I would suggest going for a triple though as it is surprising how many times we use the 24t even on the road.

Aha, now I see its no wonder I felt undergeared!
And I even forgot to mention that I installed a range of 34-14 at the rear 8 speed cassette (by removing the smallest two sprockets: 13 and 11) !
I did this , because I think uphill, when the road it very steep (say 10%-15%), the 34 might be necessary for us (in combination with the front 22) AND I prefer small(er) increments at the three or four smallest sprockets because I want to use them at cruising speed on horizontal roads. So I don’t have to be equipped with gears for downhill: We simply keep our legs still and rest (for the uphill road soon to come) and enjoy the surroundings. Besides according to me (and especially my wife) speeds exceeding say 25 mph are or may be dangerous. Since we spin at 90 rpm when we have deliver real power output the heaviest gear would be 50/14 (or equivalent) I figured out. And one other think: we will never go offroad.
So galen52657, zonatandem, tandemgeek, oldhammerboy,stapfam, thanks for your info, but you must be all giants leaving me (us) with a minority complex ! I hope when you started long ago, you did started like us !?
Another thing is this: some of you mention a ‘gear ratio’ (in inches). What is definition of that gear ratio? I mean from the numbers I can not figure out what is ment. Especially because the word ‘ratio’ suggest that it has no dimension but the dimension is apparently length (inches). I myself I’m use to the number which tells the distance the bike goes at just one full revolution crank axle. In the case of (at the moment) heaviest gear (44/14) this is 6.30 meter (tyre circumference 2.10 m) which is equal to 248 inch.

hortan, I don't know the make of your tandem but it seems likely to me that your gears are the way they are for one reason: weight. A 52T/14T combination and a 42T/11T probably work out to the same effective gear inch. I didn't do the math so I don't know but its easy to see that the 42/11 combination will use much less metal and be a lot lighter. That was the design principle at work. You second guessed the designer when you took off the small cogs. No harm done but you do need to know that as you grow in experience, your ideas about certain things just may change.

If you divide the 248" of your 44/14 heaviest gear by 3.1416 (pi) you will get a number in inches that will be the same if you divided the number of teeth on the front chainwheel by the number of teeth on the rear cog and multiplied by the rear wheel diameter. Say that number is 96". Well in 1887 when bicycles had those huge front wheels and tiny rear ones the diameter in inches of the front wheel was a big selling point. The bigger the wheel the further you went with every revolution. Of course 66" was about the practical upper limit for those bicycles. The convention of expressing the gear ratio x the rear wheel diameter is carried into the present day.

If your tandem had only five rear cogs instead of eight I could see you wanting a small difference between front chainwheels and a Crossover shift pattern but with modern 7, 8 and more rear cogs a narrower jump than 10 teeth up front is a waste. Put your gears back to factory specs and use them thus: Level and rolling terrain -- middle ring. Shift across all eight rear cogs till you find the one you like the best for conditions and your cadence. It should certainly be possible. If you see a hill coming up drop down to the smallest chainring. With a 22 you should not need a 34T. I have a 28T x 34T on my mountain tandem and I can barely obtain enough forward speed to keep upright in that gear. With a 22 I should think the stock 27(?) would work? Maybe a 32? Anyway you do your hill work on the small ring and your biggest cogs. You may not see the need for big gears to run downhill but I hope you will. I'm pushing 50 and I have 40mph on my GPS from my last ride in the park. I was behaving because of all the kids running around. Don't decide anything about the big gears just yet. Let everything stand and give it all a chance. Good luck.

H

With a 22 you should not need a 34T. I have a 28T x 34T on my mountain tandem and I can barely obtain enough forward speed to keep upright in that gear. With a 22 I should think the stock 27(?) would work? Maybe a 32? Anyway you do your hill work on the small ring and your biggest cogs. You may not see the need for big gears to run downhill but I hope you will. I'm pushing 50 and I have 40mph on my GPS from my last ride in the park. I was behaving because of all the kids running around. Don't decide anything about the big gears just yet. Let everything stand and give it all a chance. Good luck.

H

Have to agree about gearing can be too low, but you can go just a fraction too high aswell. I ride offroad so probably take more severe hills than most and at a slower speed than most aswell. When we got the tandem it had 26/28 as the lowest gearing and it was too high a gear for us. Changed over to 9 speed to give us a 32 rear sprocket and 26/32 was just about OK but we were pumping up the legs too much. The quads were taking too much strain. Changed the 26 to a 24 and it was fine, so our lowest gear is settled at 24/32. That will take us up the longest offroad hills in our area and the only time we ever walk is when we lose grip on the mud. However -We did a ride in 04 and one other Tandem on it. They had 22/34 as their lowest gear and boy were they spinning going up the hills. It was what they were used to and they sailed away into the distance on every uphill section. I decided to try it and put 44/32/22 on the tandem. We used that lowest gear but we were falling off the bike at slow speed. We could not maintain enough forward momentum to keep upright. The low gear was there and we were using it, wheras with the 24/32 we put in a little more effort but kept the speed up. I reckon that if we were to go back to the 22, we would have to have a 28 as our lowest gear for safety reasons. As I have said- you can go too low on gearing- even on a mountain bike.