Originally Posted by
Gnosis
Up to now, I’ve put off ordering the 24 tooth granny chainring because I don’t need it when commuting more locally. Yes, there are some steep ascents locally, but they aren’t nearly as long as the one’s I’ve elected to ascend via my hilly century rides. But the time has come to order that 24 tooth granny, as century riding weather will soon be upon me (as early as March 14[SUP]th[/SUP] last year, went up to 68°F that day, perfect century riding temperature and daylight was already significantly longer).
Our road tandem had a Truvativ Elita Triple (30/42/52) and a 9sp (12 - 27) cassette. Tandems aren't the best climbers because of the difficulty in getting out of the saddle. A 26T granny would have been an improvement but I figured as long as I was going through all the trouble why not a 24T. An FSA 24T has graced the inside position of our triple crankset for a couple of seasons. The rear cassette is unchanged. The 24/27 is more than enough to get up the steepest hills. A 24/32 IMO will require some super fine bike handling due to the extremely low forward speed from that low a gear. Or are you riding a tadpole trike? Mind you, our 24/27 is turning a 700C wheel so the resulting gear is even higher than if you used the same combination. If we can spin that, so can you.
I don't know where you are from but the "accepted" way of expressing gear ratio's in most of the free world is "gear inches". A lot of information was conveyed just by stating the chainwheel tooth count and the rear sprocket tooth count but to seal the deal you compute the gear inches and look like you really are a gearhead. The Sheldon Brown calculator can help. Nice post anyway.
H