steve13

testing chorus 53/39, had wanted a compact drive 50/34 for hills, can anyone tell me how a chorus compact drive works for them and which cassettes you have used for hills??

using a 13-29 cassette now woth 53/39 chainrings

shifting smoothly without tossing chain is important as my old fsa compact drive with ultegra never worked well for me, assuming the campy is much better

thanks very much for your advice

normancw

My Centaur CT alloy compact (50/34) with CT front derailler shifts very nicely with my 13-26 cassette, but I've never tried Chorus 53/39 to compare against.

It's great on the hills - however, a 50/34 with 13-26 has almost the same low gear as a 53/39 with a 13-29 (see Sheldon Brown's Gear Calculator ).

"The specialized sector chainrings are recognizable by the eight pins, that is by the special finishes designed to make the chain lift up and descend always at the most effective point. Tests run at our laboratories have shown that shifting is 19% faster than with the previous 6-pin version." (see New Features For 2006 Groupsets)

You would need also go with a Chorus medium cage rear derailler to go with a compact and a 13-29.

timwat

Norman:

Very nice job how clean your drivetrain is. Compliments!

sydney

What's that going to tell you about what you might need on your specific hills??

sydney

Yeah, seems some spend more time cleaning and talking about it than riding.

sydney

Actually, it isn't a have to.Folks use a short cage in that application.It's onlly 2 teeth over wrap spec and you shouldn't be in the small cogs when in the 34 any way.

53-11_alltheway

That's interesting. Let me go out to the garage and count how many pins on my compact drive train bike.

CPcyclist

sydney is right.

I have one bike set up with a short cage and the other with a med cage BOTH woke great with my 13-29 or 11-23, both bikes have a 53/39 and are full Chorus 10.

As for compact vs "normal" the set up you have 53/39 w/ 13=29 is virtually identical to 50/34 w/12-26.
Would think you would need to go Med cage though if you wanted to do a 50/34 w/ 13-29 though. Sydney any comment.

divekrb

I'm not Sydney but...

Short cage works fine on the twenty nine with a 50/34. I run it on my uphill TT set up.

On my road race bike I run 11/26 with a 50/33 compact.

We set my buddy's Bianchi up with a 50/34 and a 13/29 Chorus front and rear (also short cage).

Works perfectly.

fogrider

I run a 50/34 with a 11x25 cassette with a short cage rear. I like a 48 ring better.

gmason

What he - and several others - said. I use that setup myself in the mountains here, and it works a treat.

In fact, I made my 13-29 into an 11-29 for my Zonda wheelset, and that works well too. I did that for downhills, and the few flats I may stumble across.

TJHOO

On new bike am planning FSA SLK 50/34 and Chorus 12-25. For hilliest terrain plan to switch out cassette to Chorus 13-29 (know I'll need diff chain for this cassette). Would you rec short or med cage derailleur?