Originally Posted by
europa
Hmm. My large chainring is a 52 and my smallest rear cog is 11 ... on both bent and upright.
My granny is 26 on the df though still 30 on the bent with a rear cog of 32. That granny gets used around here. I like to spin at a cadence of 90 up a hill and I have a couple of regularly tackled hills that require that gearing. So not only does your compact not have the range I need, it has that huge hole between the rings requiring a multi gear change on the rear when you change on the front - that would annoy me intensely.
One of the nice things about bents is the fact that the long chainline reduces the effects of cross chaining so, provided your front dr allows it, you can work the full rear cassette from whatever chainring you're on.
Compact gearing - I've never been able to understand why people choose such a compromise but then again, people tend not to understand why I have a 26 tooth front granny mated to my 32 tooth rear.
Richard
Richard, you have LOTS of overlap in terms of duplicate gears. LOTS. Sit down and make the calculation yourself. You can have your cassette spaced wider apart and when you switch from the large to the small on the front you won't have to switch way over on the rear - in fact, if at the bottom of a hill, chances are, this time you might even fall into the correct gear the first time, with just one shift (at the front). On a triple, the chainrings are too close in gearing and you end up having to switch on the rear soon after you've switched on the front. You're just displacing the problem. And when you're coming to a downhill, one front shift and you're in high gear to sprint down - no messing around. I think compacts are more no-nonsense, in addition to less weight and improved ergonomics over a triple.
If you are strong enough to push a 52x11, you don't need a granny gear period: But maybe you are geared incorrectly to begin with. Do you really need that x11? Or even a x12? Back in the days I was racing, us strong racers didn't even have access to 12t! The smallest made up to a certain time was 13t, and when the 12 became available mainstream it wasn't allowed in race regulations anyways. I'm sure you could find a way to make your range on a double optimal and just as good as with a triple, by simply thinking out your gears on the rear cassette.
You're no young spring chicken... how's your back? Mine is terrible. Don't ergonomics count for anything in your book? Q-Factor hasn't been talked about back in the day, and pedal offset is a discrepancy still overlooked or voluntarily ignored today, yet such a cause of back problems for cyclists... I mean, just imagine if you were forced to walk with your right leg stretched out to the side... ALL of the time. If bad shoes can ruin a back, imagine the damage this can do.
I encourage you to re-think your position on this. Annoyance is a personal decision, as to what course of action one adopts in the face of something... in other words, it's more a question of personal attitude towards a phenomena than the phenomena itself.
Cheers! Timm