Hi there,

I use my bike mostly for commuting, and a little for touring.

I have a 11-13-15-18-21-24-28-32T cassette and a 28-38-48T crankset.

I ride 95% on the time on the 38T crank but realize I am hardly ever using a sprocket bigger than the 15T so I feel I am sometime under-exploiting my energy and could benefit from a bigger crank than 38T but shifting to 48T turns out quite tough pedaling...

So ideally, I would benefit from a bigger middle crank (40 or 42T) *and* a smaller big crank (~46T), and I like the idea of having the small crank as small as possible since I basically never use it, I like the idea of having it there for emergencies, for overly steep hills so don't care about speed or performance, the small crank is just an insurance of being able to climb anything at all...

I also like the idea of riding most of the time on the middle crank since it is the one to allow me without crossing the chain to use the whole range of sprockets which is convenient for commuting to have possibly a lower gear for starting in some conditions.

Now, I am fine as I am right now, but this whole shifting thing is bugging my mind... what would be the solution? because the cranksets I find are:
- either MTB ones, with the small crank as I want but a small-ish middle ring and a small big ring (24-34-42T) which is fine for the small one but too short for the other two.
- or race ones with cranks such as 30-42-52 which is alright although a bit much for the small one, perfect for the middle one but way too big for the big one.

It seems like my needs (perfect would be around 28-41-45) are exactly in between of the standards... is there a solution for me?
This is mostly hypothetical for the time being as I am merely just considering it... but still, it is frustrating that I have 2 unused cranks on my bike (the small emergency one is fine, but the big one should be usable IMO)