Originally Posted by
ClemY
I believe that half-step stuff comes from my youth when bikes had 4 or 5 spd freewheels and you wanted to maximize the spread and get as many useful gears out of the limited range that you could. I don’t find this kind of nonsense necessary with 2 or 3 front and 8, 9 or 10 rear. I like your 12-36 cluster and use it myself, but I use 20-32-42 chainrings and now that I am using the 36 rear, I could probably easily get by with a 22 granny. But I am now an old geezer and need low gears for the times when I am tired at the end of a long day and am climbing a nice long steep climb.
ClemY
Let me try and explain my thought process with this and I also consider myself well into the “old geezer” category. I tried a mountain crank just like you suggested 22,32,42 early on with both my 11-32 and my 12-36 cassettes. What I found early on was with 9 cogs in the back that covered a wide range such as these mtn cassettes do, with the correct center ring based on my strength and cadence, I could mainly stay on my center ring. Cascading up and down the cassette I had range for every type riding I do on the bike both loaded and unloaded. The bike came with a 42 center ring that was just a little high until I tried the 12-36. At that point with a 42t crank I had GI between 31 to 94. With the 32t center ring I got GI 24 to 71. Maybe if I was more of a spinner a lower center would be my sweet spot but after a lot of thought about where I wanted my cadence and speeds to be I found 42t to give me the widest possible usable span without doing a front shift. So your point and mine are the same you don’t need half step in today’s age. I could throw away my big ring and never look back, with a 1 x 9 with a granny.
When I had the mtn crank on I couldn’t say that because my starting point (average gear) wasn’t in the center of my center ring. It was split between my two rings. And many times forcing cross chaining. The shifting seems complicated because people remember half stepping as the way they had to shift in the old days and with doing double shifts with downtube shifters. For me the mountain crank was much more complicated shifting because when I would be riding near the transition point I had to think ok shift up to the big ring FD then drop down 3 or 4 on the RD.
I wanted this so I didn’t have to shift the front. And the only reason to do a front shift is to give me one higher gear, give me a straight chain line on the high gears like the mtn crank also does. But a much straighter line on the common gears in the center. And because it’s a wide spaced cassette the ability to have the in between gears when I want them with a simple shift pattern easy to remember.
I don’t want anyone to think I’m suggesting this for them. I just wanted to put the idea out there and why I like it.