Originally Posted by
MrEss
I assume it's a 5-speed freewheel. If the gearing progression is even, it's about a 22% gap between cogs.
If keeping the 53 is important to you, I'd recommend a 48t chainring to help make up for those huge jumps. That'd be half-step gearing giving you 11% jumps between 10 evenly spaced gears.
That would be 34 to 102 gear inches, which is quite a wide range.
Thank you for figuring that out for me! (And yes, it's a 5-speed freewheel)
I suspected the 39 was too small, but never thought about going up to a 48.
Looks like I will continue shopping!