Originally Posted by
old's'cool
If the single steps are small enough, double shifts are no biggie.
Most of the time you just shift the rear, using the front for fine-tuning when needed. I run either half-step or 1.5-step on all of my bikes.
One setup I liked was a close-ratio triple: 48-45-34 / 13-15-17-19-21-24.
The other trick we used to do in the 1970s was to swap the inner chainring for 1.5-step for hill work and half-step for flats, e.g.:
Either 50-42 or 50-47, with 14-16-18-20-23-26.
I have set up my Peugeot commuter w/ 45-42 / 13-15-17-20-23-26, which I really like.
Caution: Most of today's cranksets are incompatible w/ half-step, because the spiders are too thick, causing the chain to fall between gears. I wanted to run 53-50-39 on a Campag. Veloce, but couldn't make the top end work, so I settled on half-step plus overdrive: 50-42-39, giving me 1.5-step on the large and middle sprockets and half-step on the middle and small, and therefore a few redundant combinations.
Overall I think 1.5-step is probably my favorite combination. The gap at the bottom is fine, but I sometimes miss the missing ratio at the top, although one can work around that with more cogs, e.g.:
50-42/14-15-16-18-20-23-26, with 50/15 providing a very welcome 90-inch gear between the 96 top and the 84-incher.