Originally Posted by galen_52657
I am interested in hearing from any teams who are running wide-range chainrings too. 54-39 is a big jump. 54/53-42/39-28/26/24: anybody running these combinations? How does it shift?
We don't but I'll offer some observations anyway...
What we've used:
54/44/28 was our 'OEM' set-up. The 28 was a bail-out gear that didn't see much use because it could only be used in combination with the three largest sprockets on the rear cassette and the jump in gear inches when you dropped down into was pretty dramatic, even though our largest sprocket has never exceeded 32t (Campy RD). The limitation on the sprockets was chain drag on the back end of the front derailleur that had to be set high enough for the 54t sprocket. From a practical standpoint, we only used it when we surrendered to a hill as it killed our momentum. We have good friends who ended up with a 54/42/26 and they almost never use the 26 for the same reason... well, that and they're a ton stronger than us and rarely need anything lower than a 42t x 32t on anything less than 12% grades. However, that said, they have used it to take on some serious climbs and were glad they had it.
54/42/30 was an intermediate set-up. The 30t apline gear was a bit more useable in that two more rear sprockets were useable. However, what I found was that I would usually remain in 54t ring all the way through the cassette vs. using the 42t as it seemed to be a little too small. Probably just me, but it was bothersome enough to cause one additional change.
54/44/32 is now our preferred set up. We normally run a 12x27t cassette and pop-on a 12x32t for the mountains. The 44t gets a lot of use on just about anything that's not flat or rolling and the 32t also sees a lot of use on steeper climbs in that it is tall enough to give me access to 6 of the 9 rear sprockets without crossing up with the 44t ring or dragging on the back of the FD cage. The 1:1 ration of the 32t x 32t "granny gear" has proven to be OK thus far but there have been a few times on very steep grades where I've gone looking for another sprocket and lower gear only to realize we were as low as it goes. Of the three combinations, this one shifts the best between all three; however, the others weren't troublesome so long as you soft pedalled the front shifts... a good thing to do regardless of what your gearing.