morganw

All of the bikes I'm looking at with low gearing for loaded touring use barcons.
[Surly Disc Trucker, Kona Sutra, Trek 520]

The Jamis Bosanova with a Salsa Vaya fork and 24/32/42 chainrings (from Salsa) looks interesting, but is marginal shifting with no ramps & pins going to become no shifting using a Tiagra triple brifter?

Am I missing something or are there no bikes that come with low-Q trekking crankset with ramps & pins? Trek & Kona are using MTB Shimano cranksets & Surly uses Andel which doesn't specify. While you can take a 130 or 110 / 74 "road triple" crankset and sub on small rings, the official "Hyperglide" ones aren't available small.

Velo-Orange sells a crankset (perhaps the Sugino XD2 that Rivendell sells?) with a 24T granny and ramps and pins and a low Q factor. The photo shows a Tiagra derailleur, but who knows what's actuating it?

dave35

Is your main concern shifting unramped chainrings with an indexed triple shifter? It will work; it just won't be as fast, and you won't shift as reliably under heavy load. This should only be of concern if you're racing and/or don't plan your shifts properly.

If this really bothers you, you could pull a Lance and run a left DT friction shifter and use the left brifter as a brake lever.

fietsbob

OEM builds have a Bottom line , that is what the price tag shows ,
Nobody says you have to leave it like that..

Thing is Like shimano brifters throw the chain sideways twice for a triple,
once for a double .. no fine tuning after that. cage shape is their solution
It wont touch Much at the edges approaching the cross chain positions ..

the left friction bar end lets the rider fine tune the FD cage so the chain
does not drag on the FD cage, what ever the gear in back, chosen, is.

Drew Eckhardt 

All modern shifters have trim options, even Sora.