Originally Posted by
lsberrios1
Alrght! Pulled the plug today.. I could not resist. My LBS gave me an amazing deal. Needless to say it is the 4th bike I buy from them and I ended up saving what I consider a TON of money for a Complete Custom built 2014 model. The bike is a built up S Works Venge with Dura Ace 9000 and Zipp 404. All right at budget even a little under. I had to order the Shimano Group overseas since the LBS is having issues with ordering complete groups by themselves. I have a Quark Riken powermeter right now and the chainrings suck.
Here is my plan. I want to sell the DA9000 Crankset when it gets here (look for a great deal in the sale section) and getting new Rings for the Quark. I am thinking about getting either Q Rings from Rotor or Praxis Works. Both on 52/36 which will hopefully give me the climb and flat speed that I need with a 11-28 Cogset on the back. What do you guys think about the 2 options? Any thirds that I am not aware of?
Thanks!
Luis
Luis, I don't know you, your fitness level, nor riding aspirations. But, let me throw a spanner in your gearing works. I played around last year with moving between 130 and 110bcd. From 53/39 X 12-25 to 11-28 & 12-27. My new 110bcd cranks came with 50/34 and I tried those with the aforementioned cassettes as well as an 11-26. I also tried 36 and 52 rings on those cranks.
I learned two things I feel are worth mentioning:
1. I found a 16 tooth front shift to be less than ideal. The biggest concerns about it were the necessity to make three rear shifts instead of two in order to select the next gear in the sequence and the reduced overlap between rings if used with a close ratio cassette.
2. While big, low ratio cogs in the back are nice for solo toodles and recovery rides, I found them to be a distinct disadvantage on group rides and fondos. If I'm any lower than a 23 or 25 in the back, on anything but the steepest of climbs, I'm going backwards in comparison to others.
My happy medium ended up being a 50/36 X 11-26. It provides me with more top end than my previous 53X12, reasonably close ratios from 11-23 and a bail out 36X26 for the really steep stuff or if I've simply popped. If you're at a level where you require a 52X11, I would be surprised if you need anything as low as 34X28, unless you're attacking on grades of greater than 12%.
YMMV and if your fitness and terrain warrant 34X28, by all means that's what you should get. I just thought I'd throw my thoughts out there for building up what is most certainly, first and foremost a race bike.