Originally Posted by
Jeff Neese
All this talk about optimizing it for a certain gear range is silly. If you're optimizing for a certain gear range, and that's NOT approximately within the center of your chainline, I would take a look at your gearing. Maybe you need higher ranges. Your gearing should be set up so that your most-used range is mostly in the middle of the chainline. I make sure that for my riding, I'm using the "middle" of my rear cluster most. Since it's optimized for the center of the chainline, it works smoothly up and down, since everything is within spec. Look at your cassette and your chainring size if you find that your most-used range is anywhere but in the middle.
Generally, but not always the case. Some crankset chainring comibnations are crazy expensive. Same goes for some cassettes. For example, a 14-32 cassette is very hard to find in 7, 8 or more speed at a low price. The 14 T starting ones are usually double the price of an 11 starting cassette with the same number of sprockets.
Same goes for triple and double chainrings that vary from some often sold.
So one needs to make some compromises often.