Old 10-17-12, 10:01 AM
  #9  
Tourist in MSN
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Madison, WI
Posts: 11,112

Bikes: 1961 Ideor, 1966 Perfekt 3 Speed AB Hub, 1994 Bridgestone MB-6, 2006 Airnimal Joey, 2009 Thorn Sherpa, 2013 Thorn Nomad MkII, 2015 VO Pass Hunter, 2017 Lynskey Backroad, 2017 Raleigh Gran Prix, 1980s Bianchi Mixte on a trainer. Others are now gone.

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I have been using one and a half step gearing for about 8 years on my LHT. When I built up another touring bike 2 years ago, I decided that I liked it so much that I used the same exact gearing on that bike too. I use a 52/42/24 front with 11/12/14/16/18/21/26/32 eight speed rear.



I do not use the 2 most cross chained gears with each chainring, thus I only use 18 of the possible 24 gears. This gives me this kind of gearing shown in the chart, lowest gear plotted on the left and highest gear plotted on the right. The Y axis is gear inches with a tire that has a diameter of a 26X1.5 Schwalbe Marathon tire, the color coding is for which chainring is used for that gear and the key to color coding is on the right of the graph.



I used half step on one bike the I rode from the late 1970s until about 12 years ago. It took a while to get used to one and a half step after using half step for all of those years, but I eventually got used to it. I tried substituting a 46t chainring for the 52 to get half step gearing, but I bought an uncompilable ring and gave up on that experiment, the problem was thickness of the ring and not the toothcount.

Bottom line - I concur that it is GREAT to have a wide selection of gears in the range where you want them. Unladen, I am in the range of 60 to 90 gear inches over 90 percent of the time. With a camping gear load, I spend 90 percent of my time in the 50 to 80 gear inch range. So this setup results in almost half of my gears being evenly spaced throughout those ranges where I spend almost all of my time. Thus, if there is a slight change of grade or change in windage, it is very easy for me to compensate for that minor change by making a slight gear shift. The 24t gives me the bail out gears that I need for the steeper hills. And, I occasionally use the highest two gears when I have a long shallow downhill which is not that uncommon on some of the rail to trail routes.

Originally Posted by ClemY
... ... I don’t find this kind of nonsense necessary with 2 or 3 front and 8, 9 or 10 rear. ... ...
Please be nice. Nobody is telling you that you have to buy it.

Originally Posted by nun
Nice set up. I'd be a bit concerned with the 42 to 24 gap, it's not a capacity issue for a triple derailleur, but watch out for dropping the chain. This sort of arrangement needs you to fiddle with the derailleur height, but once that's done they are great and ... ...
I use a chain catcher to help keep from dropping the chain when I shift from teh 42t to the 24t. I agree that the shift from the 24t up to the 42t is not a smooth shift, but I am only on the 24t chainring for the worst hills. Thus, I do not make this upshift very often. I almost always can make this shift over a distance of less than 30 feet. A friction front shifter is needed for this.
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