Thread: Ah ... finally!
View Single Post
Old 05-26-08, 09:12 AM
  #18  
Tom Bombadil
His Brain is Gone!
 
Tom Bombadil's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Paoli, Wisconsin
Posts: 9,979

Bikes: RANS Stratus, Bridgestone CB-1, Trek 7600, Sun EZ-Rider AX, Fuji Absolute 1.0, Cayne Rambler 3

Mentioned: 1 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 2 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 1 Time in 1 Post
Made for me except for the 52t ring. I knew that going in. It is essentially useless to me. When I was spec'ing parts for a potential build, I decided to go with a mountain bike crankset, something along the lines of 44/34/24. In retrospect, when I purchased the Fuji, I should have had the crank swapped for one of those. But I was enamored of the external bearings bottom bracket and stayed with the stock 52/39/30 set. And it was cheaper to just leave it the way it came.

The 39 & 30 rings are good, very useful. But the 52t might as well have the teeth filed off and then it can function as a chain guard. I attempted to use it the other day, I can't use the large 27t rear sprocket with it because that's cross-chaining. I can use the 24t okay, but once I shift up to 3rd gear (21t) that's already too tall for me on level ground. So I have one useful gear, which is a duplicate of gears I already have off of 39t & 30t rings.

As I said, I fully knew it would be useless going in, as I almost never used the 48t ring on my hybrid. I just had the hybrid's cassette replaced because I wore out the 4th & 5th cogs. About 80% of all of my miles last year were done riding my 36t front and 16t & 18t rear. Then if you added 3rd & 6th gear, the 14t and 21t cogs, you just covered 95% or more.

I'll keep riding it and see how things go. But I'm already thinking that maybe next year, I'll go back and have the crank swappped ... at considerable more expense than it would have cost me to have it done at the time of purchase when I had the tires and pedals swapped. Or see if there is anyway to replace the large ring with a smaller one, but I don't think that can be done on this crankset. It would be nice if I could drop it down to a 46t.
__________________
"Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen." Louis L'Amour

There are two types of road bikers: bikers who are faster than me, and me. Bruce Cameron - Denver Post
Tom Bombadil is offline