Originally Posted by
daka
My first post here so I hope I am not stepping on anyone's toes. I agree that OP is going to a lot of expense and trouble to get a gear that is only 10% lower than what is pretty commonly done (42/28) by others. But staying with what the OP is wanting to do, if it were me I would add another link of chain. With that much tension on the chain in the larger rear sprockets, I think you may find that the derailleur is hesitant to upshift out of those gears. At least that was my experience running a short chain like that on a NR derailleur. By the time you've moved the derailleur enough to get off of the larger cog you end up two cogs away, not at the adjacent sprocket.
The additional link will mean that the chain will hang slack in the small/small combos but, if I understood you in the first place, the purpose of the triple is to get some "bail-out gears" for steeper hills and you won't need to use the ratios that the small/small combinations provide.
That's fair. I had all of these components on hand, so the only real expense is that they came out of my parts bin. I really wanted to make the 26T freewheel work, which would have given me an almost 22% lower gear, but I just wasn't happy with the number of slack gears I'd end up with using the 12-26 freewheel I had on the shelf. I might try it later with a 14-26. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that the C&V purists don't think a freewheel with a 28T cog looks worse than the way I have this set up with a triple. I know at least one member of this forum who wouldn't even like my 13-24 freewheel with a double because it doesn't have the classic corncob look. He's a much stronger rider than I am.
I'll see how well this works when I put it on the road, but in the stand it feels like all of the gears are basically acceptable.