Touring - gearing concerns on Pacific Coast trip (hills)

My daughter, who will be 14 at the time, and I plan to ride our tandem bike (fully loaded), possibly with trailer from Canada to Mexico (see www.ttfc.org (http://www.ttfc.org)), via the Pacific Coast in summer ’05. I have some concerns that our bike is geared properly. It has a stock triple 30/42/52 and a 9 speed rear 11-32.

Any thoughts and/or experience with this gearing… good or bad?

I am considering making some changes, if practical. Any comments would be appreciated.

Thx,

Steve

In my experience, which includes all of the WA and OR coast and a good amount of CA, there is no such thing as too low a gear. I haven't ridden a tandem, but from what I've seen on century rides, they require more effort than a single bike for climbing, unloaded. that would carry over to loaded riding right? So, I had my Trek 520's gear changed right off the showroom floor from 30 x 32 low gear to a 26 x 32, and then while on tour in New Zealand a couple months ago, I found an 11-34 cassette, making my lowest gear 26 x 34. If I could get a smaller ring in front, I would. I never want to go as fast as my highest gear allows (52x11) anyway, I don't really like to descend fast, so i don't have to worry about that. So that doesn't really help you decide on that end of the spectrum, most people do like to descend faster than me.

If I were you, and I could afford it, I would go for full mountain bike gearing - 22 x 34 low gear.

Hope that helps, opinions may vary, and I'm not the strongest rider out there by any means.

Oh, i just saw you are in seattle. some of the steepest hills i encountered on that tour were in the port orchard area.... you could just load that baby up and ride her around, and find out for yourself!

Have a great tour!
anna

My daughter, who will be 14 at the time, and I plan to ride our tandem bike (fully loaded), possibly with trailer from Canada to Mexico (see www.ttfc.org (http://www.ttfc.org)), via the Pacific Coast in summer ’05. I have some concerns that our bike is geared properly. It has a stock triple 30/42/52 and a 9 speed rear 11-32.

Any thoughts and/or experience with this gearing… good or bad?

I am considering making some changes, if practical. Any comments would be appreciated.

Thx,

Steve

I don't think 30-32 is low enough. Short steep rolling hills tire you out much much more than sustained moderate grades do. My lowest gear is 28-36.

roughstuff

Put a 24T granny ring on. Use the granny only on the bigger half of the cassette and you shouldn't have any problems with the chain dragging on the bottom of the derailer cage.

My daughter, who will be 14 at the time, and I plan to ride our tandem bike (fully loaded), possibly with trailer from Canada to Mexico (see www.ttfc.org (http://www.ttfc.org)), via the Pacific Coast in summer ’05. I have some concerns that our bike is geared properly. It has a stock triple 30/42/52 and a 9 speed rear 11-32.

Any thoughts and/or experience with this gearing… good or bad?

I am considering making some changes, if practical. Any comments would be appreciated.

Thx,

Steve

My wife and I ride a Santana Arriva with the same gearing and we haven't wished for a lower gear yet. Unloaded we rarely go to the small ring, loaded of course is more often but it has been a long time since we have had to hit the top gear on the cassette. Most of our riding is in the foothills around Calgary and into the Banff area so we do hit some hills. Your best bet is to load up and go on a few trial runs to see what works for you.

Have fun

I run an 11-30 set with 26-36-46(standard 11 years ago) on my mountainbike, cadence around 120 going downhill is good for 38.8mph cadence at 60 top is 19.4mph bottom gear 4mph my bike computer confirmed these calculations. that a total gain-ratio range of 1.7-8.1 compaired to my standard road bike 39/52 with 13-26 for a gain range of 3.0-8.1
I have very few uphills I have problems with on the mtb however my local 2mile 8% does test me a bit and there is one in east Tacoma just off portland ave a few blocks east of I-5 (franklin street I think) 25% twentyfive% grade for a block and a half, its tough but I can usually pull it standing in granny.
I know I've seen mtb cogsets with upto 36teeth they may make 38 but I don't recall. good MTBs all use 8rear sprockets as far as I know

It is a mtb but I use it for regular 20-50 mile rides.

Try this link it has great info there's a link near the end to his gear calculator. which does up to three chainrings, crank length, upto ten sprockets, internal hubs up to five speed, and wheel size all together. the dude built a 63 speed bike with a Sturmey-Archer AW 3-speed hub, with 7 sprockets, driven by 3 chainwheels: 3 x 7 x 3 = 63
If you keep the calculater results page open new results are added to it so you can scroll up and down to compare results.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gain.html

this one is for the 63 speed its on the site under the D.I.Y. section http://www.sheldonbrown.com/otb.html

"It has a stock triple 30/42/52 and a 9 speed rear 11-32. "

i doubt you'll be happy with your stock gearing. you'll be fine with the
rear setup, tho you probably won't get much use out of the smallest
two cogs. if you decide to change out the rear, look for smallest
cog to be 13 or 14, fairly even spacing up to 28T, with a jump to
the largest bailout gear of 32 or 34.

but the front (imo) definitely needs smaller rings. that
42/52 setup is more appropriate for road racing; go with a 24 or 26T
granny, with the two larger rings similar to mtb gearing, 36-46 or
38-48.

i have 24/36/46 on both my touring rigs, road and mtb. road rear is a
14:34 7spd, and mtb is a 13:30 7spd. i usually have one set of panniers,
plus a bob trailer. never had any problems getting up the hills, unless
too much gravel and lose traction.