Originally Posted by
mams99
To me, one of the most important things for a touring bike to have is really good touring gear ratios. Don't come at me that it's all about building muscle so that any bike will be fine. That isn't what I'm looking for.
I want a bike - new or old - that is just made to get up hills. I'm not in a race, I just don't want to run out of gears. And I know there are sites and formulas out there but to a novice bike enthusiast, that stuff is WAY over my head. It doesn't help that I had a fluke stroke 5 years ago caused by a change in medication that wiped out my ability to do math. That ability has come back, but it'll never be as good as it once was (I also lost my ability to write initially too so I probably have more typos than you would expect).
If there is a list of it somewhere - that info would be great too.
Bicycle gearing is fungible. You can change it as you like
and the range of derailers given by manufacturers is often very conservative, especially the front. The range on rear derailers are generally close to the actual range but front derailers can handle an astoundingly wider range than what is published. I never stick with the gearing that comes on the bike but, then, I seldom stick with anything on the bike that comes OEM in general.
For example my road touring bike (originally a gray T800) came with a 48/38/28 crank with an 11-34 cassette. That didn’t last long. I swapped the crank out for a 46/36/22 crank with an 11-34 cassette. I’ve since gone to a
44/32/20 crank with an 11-36 cassette with a 110” high and a 15.2” low. A 20 tooth ring is requires a little bit of surgery to get it to work but it it’s worth the trouble.
This is my bikepacking bike that now has ridiculous gearing. It has a
44/32/20 crank and an 11-40 cassette. That’s a 110” high and a 13.0” low! It’s a mind numbing 800% range! How bunches of people will tell you this just can’t be done. It’s possible, you just need to experiment.
Originally Posted by
Doug64
You can change the gearing on almost any bike. I have re-configured 5 of our families' touring bikes with mountain bike gearing, and (shifter/brake) "brifters".
All our bikes run a triple with 22/32/44 chainrings, and a 11-34 cassette. This gives a gear range of 16.8 to 103.6 gear inches. This is a good touring setup.
This is my Bianchi Volpe set up that way.
Something wrong with your math. I calculate your range as 17.7” to 110”