Originally Posted by
daviddavieboy
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I am rethinking this one for sure. On your bikes with triples, what cassette gearing are you using? I can return the 12 speed one I bought and get a 10 speed. Then I could use a derailleur I already own. (105 med cage or XT long cage)
You probably are not interesting in replicating what I am using, my gearing is technology from a couple decades ago.
I built up my first touring bike in 2004, at that time used a 11/32 eight speed Sram cassette with 11/12/14/16/18/21/26/32 sprockets. And partly for convenience, I am also using that cassette on my folding bike, rando bike and two touring bikes. It is quite convenient from a maintenence standpoint if most of your bikes use the same cassette and chains.
Touring bike cranks, I suspect you would not want to use what I have, I am running a half step plus granny crankset, half step is pretty much out of favor now. Those cranks are 46/42/24. But a granny gear of 24 teeth and a big ring of 46 teeth are certainly in a good range for touring smallest and biggest chainrings.
One of my touring bikes, the 24T granny chainring is silver so almost impossible to see it in this photo:
Rando bike, using a road triple crank, 52/42/30, but that bike rarely carries more than a bag of groceries for weight, so my granny gear of 30T on my rando bike is not appropriate for touring bike weights.
Rando bike photo:
Although the technology described on the above bikes is a couple decades old, it works so well for me that I have no desire to change these bikes to different gearing.
I have a 10 speed road bike with compact double crank, but the gearing is not low enough for touring so I do not provide details on that here. I bought that as a complete bike, did not build it up myself.