Hi! I haven't had the time to work on my bike since I started this tread in august. Thanks for all the good advice. I have some further questions abot the gearing before I decide what to do. First, what I forgot to stress in the original post is that my crankset has 130BCD for the two biggest chainrings (48 and 44 teeth) and 74mm for the smallest (24teeth). The cassette is a 8-speed (11-32T). This was the original setup when I bought the bike back in 2007. As I said, the front derailleur could barely manage these big leaps in gearing from the beginning. When I replaced the front chainrings this spring, the local bikeshop could't do it satisfacory (they also told me that the 74/130 BCD was an uncommon combination). Later on I've read that the front derailleur rarely handles leaps bigger than 22 teeth:
Most mountain type of front derailleurs handle up to a 12 tooth between individual chainrings (e.g., 48 to 36 equals 12 teeth) and up to a 22 tooth between largest to smallest chainrings (e.g., 48 to 26 equals 22 teeth).- http://www.bicycle-touring-guide.com...cycle-gearing/
As I said earlier, I really like to be able to use the smallest chainring (22t). I could probably do with a smaller one at the top. When doing research I've found out that 46T is the smallest amount of teeth on a outer chainring 130BCD. That would put me in the 22 teeth interval mentioned in the link above. Still I'm a little sceptical if this would work when considering it's only two teeth less than I've used. The suggestions I got from a few of you in the last post indicated that you used 110 BCD crank I guess...
My questions are:
Going on a world tour with a relatively heavy load, knowing that I like steep mountain roads and that I have to replace parts as I go, what would your suggestion for a good reliable gearing system be (crank arm 110/130 – 74 BCD? - 8 speed/9 speed? - chainrings front?) Should I experiment more on the crank I have, or would it be better to start from scratch? If you have links to products I'd be grateful.
Thanks, Jan Petter