Bekologist

Hi JC witte,

you might just try spacers on that 24 ring...wait, before you try that....

I've got a 520 with the same stock rings like yours, and also my heavy touring bike that is actually running a 24-36-46 with 11x34 in the back.

Before xmas I jotted down some gear inch ratios from Sheldon's GREAT gear calculator so I could pour over them on the airplane, and here were my (possibly incorrect) inferences...

****MAJOR EDIT BELOW**** had to substitute 'lowest' cogs for 'smallest', doh! brain freeze


on the 520 with stock gearing, you only have to run the lowest three rear cogs with your small chainring before you duplicate gear travel in 4thcog/small ring & your lowest cog/middle ring.

So, on stock, only the first lowest three on the front small ring, then bring it up to middle ring. Then you can do some fancy cross ring shifting if you want to keep the steps small.

On my bike with 24-36-46 and 11-34 in the back, I only need to run the lowest three again, until I get a gear near-duplication in lowest cog/middle ring - so again, the same scenario, I only HAVE to use the the lowest three cogs in my smallest chainring, then can move up into the middle ring.

There's a lot of fancy cross shifting you can do and alternate chainrings to step small, but I'm a straight shifter myself. My brain doesn't do math while riding very well. I think i probably get away with using the lowest 5 or so cogs before I remember to shift into the middle ring on either the 520 or my heavy tourer.

Hope this helps...