Originally Posted by
Paul Barnard
Part of the reason that I asked is that I want to build a Lynskey Touring bike for myself for a retirement gift and I want to tour out west. I am 5'11" 175. I have bad knees and live in the flatlands. I will go lightly loaded. Kinda credit card touring. No cooking along the way. I know based on my experiences riding in the mountains that I need the equivalent of 22/34 gearing to comfortably tackle the steep stuff. I want drop bar shifters. Nothing on the flats and nothing on the ends. I have my reasons for that. So as I started trying to mentally assemble my drivetrain, I am finding it doesn't really exist without doing piecemeal work. It looks like most of you are running triples up front and stuff in the 11-34 range in the back, and best I can figure there's not a road group I can buy today that will give me that. I want to buy some good quality stuff.
great points/details/intentions, and makes all the diff in putting out opinions and suggestions.
Really good that you are aware and realistic of what gearing you want at the low end. One of my bikes is with 22/34 and I love the low gearing, its a 26in bike so even lower than 700 stuff, 16.7 gear inches with 2in tires on--and works perfectly for its intended use, ie travelling in far off areas with more weight than usual, spare this, spare that, extra water, food, much steeper hills than we tend to have here in N America.
Thats the great thing with nice low low gearing, its there when you want it, and your knees like it, but with any reasonably range of gearing, you can still ride along at 20kph or 30kph with no problems. From all of my touring experience, it is
extremely rare to be able to maintain more than 30kph, or 20mph, and my 26in bike with a 9 speed 44/32/22 and 11-34 covers the range of speeds I regularly ride at, whether it be 5 or 6kph on a hard slog steep hill, or 50kph on a downhill.
On this bike, I too didnt want bar ends or topbar stuff, and shied away from sti's, and went with Gevenalle shifters, hood shifters but very simple. Slightly quirky in some aspects, but they are dead simple and work well when set up properly.
Mountain bike triples (rare today) are slightly low geared for unloaded riding, but as you say, first you have to see what is around still, and then you have to deal with the incompatibilities with sti's and mtn stuff rear/front derailleurs etc.
Were you thinking of going 9, 10, 11 speed?
10 seems to be the new standard, and while there are great cranksets like the deore 48/36/26 ten speed, (which you can easily change out the 26 to smaller rings) you still get the issue of mtn bike vs road shifter issues....
With 10 speed, cassettes like 11-36 or larger can help with things a lot, but ulitimately, its the darn sti shifter problems that come back all the time isnt it?
It will be interesting to see wehre this discussion goes, as I cant recall what sti shifter solutions have been figured out so far in the mtn vs road, dyna-sis vs roadie issues that have been around now for a bunch of years, pretty much since 10 speed came in.
If you lived close, I'd let you try my gevenalle bike, but thats not an option.
Do look at their website though, there used to be some vids on it showing them in use, but in any case, they aren't as nice using as sti shifters, which could be a factor for you. When I say, not as nice, meaning, they are slower, shifting is more deliberate, but at least they are on teh hoods, which I like a lot. Ive spent about 3 months or more riding them in Latin America, and like them a lot, but as I have a sti bike, I do notice the diff with sti. Kinda like a sports car manual transmission vs a slow slightly klunky standard, if you get my drift--a slight over exaggeration, but gives an idea.