BobbyG

The co-op called at 6:15 last night...they installed the 12-28, no new chain was needed and I could pick it up which I did. A quick lap of their flat parking lot hinted that this set-up would be adequate. A quick ride up and down the hill my house sits on made me realize that the low end is now similar to my '84 Nishiki 12 speed...low enough, while the top end is still high enough. Shifting was as precise as before.

So, mission accomplished for just $25.82 parts, labor and tax. Thank you everyone for your input and suggestions.

Now we'll see how long this and the gearing on my other bicycles works for me as I pedal through the rest of my 60s and beyond.

Calsun

Bite the bullet and put on a 11-34 cassette and a new derailleur which is roughly $100 in parts and an hour of shop labor. The shop can add more links or it may be time to buy a new chain for your bike to use with the cogs.

RCMoeur 

I was running low Low gears in my 20s, thanks to some guy named Berto and the proliferation of interchangeable MTB components on the market in the 80s.

But since I did it decades ago, now what do I have to look forward to...?

cyccommute 

Nope. Nope. Nope. And, again, nope. Not the bit about Mr. Berto but about the mountain bike components. Mountain bikes stole from touring bikes to get the gears they needed for riding off-road. If I recall correctly, Berto was using an Avocet crank with a 52/39/24 ring set and a 13-34 freewheel to give him a 111” to 19” low and a 567% range.

To give mountain bikes their credit, they took those gears and reduced them further. Suntour’s Microdrive reduced the inner ring to a wonderfully small 18 tooth gear, although the 20 tooth gear was more common. It’s possible, with some aluminum surgery, to get a 20 tooth gear onto a 64mm BCD on the commonly used mountain bike cranks today.

RCMoeur 

If you want to start a fight about small details, as evidenced by your nope-iness, I don't see the point.

Yes, the touring market established the need for and value in wide gear ranges. But it took the explosion of the mountain bike market to get mass quantities of low gears into general circulation, much of which is still with us today.

For comparison, I'll probably see 10 or more mountain bikes from that era with wide-range triples for every one touring bike with a similar gear setup. Had it been solely the demand from the touring market driving manufacturing, the parts might still have been available in a niche market (similar to the availability of older TA), but not in the volume (and corresponding low cost) that allows for one to accumulate a full range of sizes from 24 to 52 teeth in the front and 11 to 38 teeth in the rear for a modest cash outlay (depending on when bought).

cyccommute 

It’s a joke. No fight intended.

Yes, I agree that mountain biking refined gearing but wide range gearing with triple cranks existed for many years before mountain bikes came along. I was road biking for most of a decade before getting a mountain bike in 1984. That included touring in mountainous Colorado where low gearing comes in handy. All of the modern bicycles I’ve owned since 1977 have had triples and low gears. I was also a consumer of bicycle literature including the same articles by Berto that you were consuming. I was just pointing out…in a joking manner…that touring bikes got the wide range low gearing started. Granted touring bikes have always been a niche market but so were the earliest mountain bikes.

Perhaps it’s a function of where you and I live but I saw a lot of triple equipped bikes in the pre-mountain bike days and there was a lot of press about wide range gearing in the pre-mountain bike days, largely thanks to Frank Berto. Most of the articles by Berto that you are referencing occurred in the years before mountain biking was much more than a bunch of crazies from California riding old Schwinns down a logging road.

BobbyG

End of Story...I took a longer route to the office this morning. Lots of fast downhills but 12 cog (versus the original 11) was still a bit high. Below 32mph I don't think I'm gonna miss that top gear, and I rarely get over 32 these days. The longer route also has some climbs, a long moderate one and a short steep one. The low gear was adequate. I couldn't sit and spin uphill at high cadence like on my MTB, but I didn't have to get up out of the saddle and muscle my way up, which was fun in my 40s, but tough on my 60+ knees.

Thanks again for all the advice...I'll keep it in mind for next time.