Originally Posted by
Phamilton
A standard chain has how many links? I don't remember. My Voyageur takes the whole chain exactly, no links added or taken away. Is that what you mean by set up to allow big/big, by chain length? Or something else?
Yeah, the chain is long enough so the RD doesn't pull tight in the big-big combo (it probably has one full link of surplus.) If I hadn't cut the chain it would be droopy for at least half of the cassette when in the small ring. I also chose as short a bottom bracket spindle as possible so that the big ring would line up close to the center of the cassette. An alternate way of thinking about my gearing system is as a 1x with a granny ring.
When I built up a mixte for my wife, I used a long-cage RD and threw a chain on without cutting it, and it works perfectly, even though it's longer than necessary for the gear range.
