Originally Posted by
Allegheny Jet
Wish I could offer some good advice, but with 7 decent bikes in my garage I will sit on my hands. Possibly I can confuse the issue even more by suggesting a 2nd set of wheels with road tires. I believe that the new cyclo cross 700 wheels with disk brakes would work perfectly in a 29'er. The wheels would allow you to put road tires on the bike.
My problem with this is the original bike. I did this on a hard tail and set the forks up to have minimal movement and it rode well- problem was that it was still a heavy bike-The gearing was far too low and the Suspension still took some momentum away from my effort put in. Still did hilly metrics in 4 hours so It was not that bad a ride.
Originally Posted by
jmiked
I was sort of looking at the Specialized Secteur Sport (52/42/30 chainring, 13-26t cassette) or Sport Triple (50/39/30 chainring, 12-27t cassette), as compared to my Camber 29er (44/32/22 chainring, 11-34t cassette).
It looks like the low range on either Sport is similar to the Camber low range I have (using Sheldon Brown's calculator).
Depends on your area and how hilly but I went triple 52/42/30 on my first road bike. After the MTB at 44/32/24- I never used the 52 unless it was downhill. Next bike had a compact 50/34 and I use the 50 fully. That 2t made a heck of a difference to me. Now have a triple 50/39/30 on one bike and for a hilly ride- that is perfect. The fall betwen the rings is perfect wheras the compact can be just a bit wide.