Originally Posted by
theschwinnman
I would like compact doubles IF they had a 53 tooth large ring. Unless your cassette/block has an eleven tooth sprocket, it'll be geared too low.
A 53 big ring would be great if the OP was racing on his TOURING BIKE! The simple fact is compact doubles make sense for a huge portion of the riding population. I bet even some racers that aren't descending mountain passes every other day wouldn't miss not having an extreme high gear ratio that you will barely ever use.
I actually feel kind of dumb now. I didn't realize you could just set up a touring triple with new rings on the outside...is that the case? Can I just set up a compact double with most 110 BCD cranksets?
It depends on the triple. Common triples are five arm 130/74mm or 110/74mm rings. Compact doubles use 110mm rings. If you have a 110/74 ditch the granny gear and add some suitable 110mm chainrings for a compact double. I have done this in the past with some of my own bikes using mtn triples since they are often 175mm in length and I am tall. If you did want to go with a futuristic outboard bearing compact double the SRAM S350 is nice at $100-120 with BB cups. I am running a compact Rival crankset switched to 48/34 rings on my rando bike. I am also a fan of going even lower with the compact double, 46/30t instead of 50/34. But, that can't be done on a 110mm BCD crank unless the granny is used as the 30. I have a TA Cyclotouriste crank that is getting 46/30t rings and an older Sugino XD (older 94mm BCD) that is setup as a 46/30.