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Old 01-09-14, 06:25 PM
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expatbrit
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Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: 'burque, holmes
Posts: 820

Bikes: Ridley X-Fire (now an ex-bicycle), Trek X-Cal, Giant Defy 3

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Chainrings for a climbing clyde

Admittedly, I'm just under true clyde in weight, but I live in the foothills of the Sandia's in NM, and so end up climbing quite a bit.

The new bike is a CX bike, with CX gearing. 46/36 on the front, 12-27 on the rear. Thus far I've been OK with this on the climbing (a fact I find pretty surprising, since I'd use MUCH lower gearing on my old bike to go up the same hills, and the 10lbs of weight difference isn't the thing here. That's a whole different question, however, and one of the reasons I love the bike)

Crank is an FSA SL-K Light, chainrings are also FSA. While I've seen bad opinions on these, they're fine for the level of riding that I do.

I'm not planning on spending money right now, but I'm looking at my 'cycling wish list' for the year. One thing that looks to be pretty common would be to 'upgrade' to a regular road compact set, by someone like Praxis. Not a huge amount of money, but enough that I don't just want to buy it 'just because'.

Checking gear calculator, it'll give me a slightly lower bottom gear on little-big (my primary concern) -- approximately 5%, if my math is good.

It also gives me a higher top gear, but while I get sloppy pedaling at cadences above 120, I can do it and that's a pretty decent clip for me even downhill these days.

There's less overlap between small and big chainrings.

Would this be a 'useful' ride upgrade, in my continued quest to ride up grades? Or am I better off just staying where I am and riding more. (Or, optimally, both?)
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