Originally Posted by 53-11 alltheway

Yes it true that the middle ring does duplicate many gear ratios, but that is true on even standard triples.

What's wrong with having the middle ring.If you didn't you might have to go from 67 gear inches to over 102 gear inches on some upshifts and that will definitely mess up your cadence. How is that going to be fast? That's like shifting a car from 2nd gear to fifth. It bogs "the engine" down and takes forever to accelerate.

If you want to think of it as a shift ramp fine, whatever. It will be faster this way....nobody can make a 35 + inch gear jump and still stay fast!!!


I wish I had a mile per hour to cadence conversion chart because I would like to see how much your cadence would drop on some of these big shifts. A 36-16 to 54-16 shift has got to slow you down a lot.

Now a 36-16 (59.4 inches) upshift to 45-16( 74 inches) is still big but won't slow you down that much....and your cadence will speed up to 90 or so fairly rapidly. Now(in the 45-16 gear) you can either upshift to 45-14(84 inches) or upshift to 54-16 (89 inches) either one is a good choice.

I think now you can see the genius in my plan.

All calculation were made with a 54-45-36 triple set-up using sheldon browns 11-28 cassette( 11,12, 13,14,16,18, 21, 24,28).

My final gearing plan will be fine tuned a little more, but I definitely think this is the way to go. The only trick is if you space the chain ring ratio in a little closer you should space the cassette ratios out slightly.

Idealy shifts between chain rings would feel more natural (only 9 tooth difference on my system...most likely develop a 8 tooth spread in my final bike plan 50-42-34 with 11-28 cassette). Although chain ring shifts will always be bigger jumps (and therefore suck for speed) I think there is a way to may this transition better.