Originally Posted by
alan s
Looking to make my 11-speed road bike drivetrain more climbing friendly. For rolling hills, when fully loaded, I am in the lowest gear more than I would like, and the plan is to do some trips that involve more serious climbing this summer. What are the options for lower gearing?
The current setup is Ultegra 50-34 front, 11-32 rear, which gives around 29 gear inches. It looks like JTek Shiftmate 8 allows the use of 11 speed road shifters with 11 speed MTB rear derailleur and cassette.
Shiftmate Compatibility | Jtek Engineering. This would give me 23 gear inches with an 11-40 cassette or 22 gear inches with an 11-42 cassette, either of which would be better. The conversion would run around $200.
Are there other options, such as swapping out the inner chainring or a new crank, that would be better or cheaper, and allow even lower gearing?
just so we are clear here, you will not be adding bags to your road bike will you? Not that it really matters but I just wanted to be sure.
From my riding experience, getting down from 29g.i. to 23 g.i. would be a noticeable and appreciated difference, and so your $200 option seems like the best way to go and you will see immediately how you like it.
When I ride my dropbar bike without anything on it, it still weighs a good 28lbs and I still appreciate having the stock gearing down around 25. I imagine your bike weighs less but then I am a light guy and like climbing, so your 23 or 22g.i option seems perfectly reasonable to me and fits along with my experience of what is nice to have for steep stuff.
as I'm sure you know, the only downside to the wide cassettes 11-40 or whatever is that you are going to lose some closer spacings between shifts. Look at the specific cogs you have now and compare them in gearing charts to the 11-40 and you'll see the larger jumps--but this is the price for a more comfortable and flexible gearing range that you will appreciate at times.
I would also add that its not really a problem with longer caged derailleurs to switch out at times the 11-40 back to a tighter cassette. I do it sometimes with my 9 speed stuff and there is usually no more than a very small rd adjustment to do, a small barrel adjuster turn and its done--so keep this in mind if you really do like a tighter cassette and can use it at times. Takes 10 or 15 mins to take off the cassette and check the shifting up on a stand.