Originally Posted by
Drew Eckhardt
Profits. Very low gearing and low gearing with tight spacing both require a triple crank which increases bike, crank, front-derailleur, and usually shifter SKUs which cut profits.
Thanks for any insight/advice.
IMHO,
1. Cassettes with jumps larger than one tooth through the 19 cog are unsuitable for road riding because they lack the most comfortable gear for many situations.
2. Cranks without one ring covering about 45-75 gear inches eschewing cross-chained combinations are at best sub-optimal for many road rides due to the increased front shifting.
Ex: 53-39-26 x 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25
It's a compromise favoring the bike companies. Lots of us made do with 42x28 low gears when 10 speeds meant 2x5 and managed with lower cadence.
No. You can still hang your choice of components on a frame set. You can also start with a complete bike to get the OEM parts discount, replace what you don't want, and sell the left overs as new take-offs. Either way you don't even need to settle for currently produced parts.
When I weighed somewhere between 185 and 205 pounds (in decent shape I'm under 150, and great shape under 140 with aerobic capacity matching that size) I installed NOS 2010 Campagnolo Centaur levers, used 2004-2006 Record Titanium triple derailleurs, and an ebay FSA SLK-Lite triple crank on my bike (with the kids past their odyssey years I'd have splurged for a Lightning carbon crank). I could have done the same on a new frame.
I've never seen the need for the 1-tooth spacing more than maybe half the way up the cluster.
On my main couple of rides, I use 12-13-14-15-17-19-21-24-27 cassettes and I find the spacing works well. I'd actually skip the 12 and replace it with a 16 if it were available, but I don't really miss it. On my two bikes with this spacing, one has a 53-39 up front, and I NEVER ride the 12 cog. The other I'm building with a 51-39-29 Triple, and I might find myself riding the 51-12 combo on descents, but I could still live without it.
The bike I have with the widest range gearing, my aforementioned "Mountain Goat" that I used to bike across the US, including the Rockies, Wasatch, and Sierra Nevada ranges with 35+ pound loaded panniers, is an 18 speed Trek having much wider gaps - and those gaps do sacrifice performance. That bike has a 13-15-17-20-26-32 freewheel, and a 48-38-28 compact triple. I don't recommend this setup for high performance riding due to the mid-range gaps and the lack of any real high gear above 98 gear inches. It was the deficiency of the high end gearing on this bike that led me to my current project to build a 27-speed bike with the 51-39-29 Triple and the 12-27 cassette, which will have a reasonably tightly spaced useable gearing range from 28.5 gear inches at the bottom, up to 113 at the high end. I believe that this sort of gearing is what the OP is looking for. I haven't seen it on any $1500-3000 performance bike as configured by the manufacturer - but it's certainly doable with an aftermarket triple and cassette swap on a ~$2K new bike with about $200-250 of parts adder. You can get the aforementioned triple for under $150 including a new, wide spindle bottom bracket (Mine is a standard 9-speed Campy Record crank bought used and a new set of Triplizer Chainrings that cost me $40, and a new bottom bracket for $25.
You could also buy a Campy Veloce racing triple crank.
BTW, my entire build is only going to cost me something like $500 or so, but I picked up a great old steel Schwinn Paramount Series 7 frame for $120, and I already had the wheels and the bar and stem hanging in my garage as spares. But, as I said, the gearing could be replicated on most off the shelf Carbon bikes for a $200-250 parts adder for the triple crank and maybe a bigger cassette - you might also need a new shifter for the triple depending on what's on the bike before the mod.
Ed: I just noticed that this gearing isn't even as wide as the OP's current ride. Certainly, one could go with a granny gear down to 28, maybe 26 teeth in front, and a rear cassette that has a 30 cog. Anything bigger than a 30 rear cog is going to need a Derailleur swap at the rear, to accommodate a total range of over 40 teeth between both rings.