bud16415

Some of us don’t feel that way. There is logic that can be applied a lot of different ways. For certain types of bikes like loaded touring bikes where a large range of gearing is required and still a desire for small steps of adjustment a true half step can work out perfect. Likewise heavy riders or not as strong of riders can benefit by a large spread of gears with smaller steps. I also feel anyone that rides in a location where they encounter the full gambit of hills and mountains and flats with winds and wants to ride without compromising being in a close to perfect gear for the job could still benefit from a new version of half-stepping.

The common old road bikes had a 52/42 setup with or without a granny and most people called that a half step but it was really a one and a half step. I run a 45/42 that is a half-step against a 9 speed cassette and get 15 distinctly different gears with no duplication on a triple crank with no cross chaining the range is between 31 and 101 gear inches just on the 45/42. I selected my granny size to give me 6 distinctly different gears with duplication to overlap the lowest two of my 45/42 normal riding gears. So the granny gives me a range between 18 and 36 gear inches.

For me I can spin up anything that comes along with the granny and having 15 gears in the half-step for road riding it’s as smooth as I could ever ask for. I might add that a true half step shift in the front is as smooth as a one step shift in the back.

I wouldn’t call half step nonsense at all living in an area where a wide range of gears is needed. If I lived in a flat place and all I was dealing with was wind sure I would have something with a close cluster of 8 or more cogs in the back and one or two rings in the front.

This is my half-step gearing 45-42-24 X 12,14,16,18,21,24,28,32,36 and I love it.