Been changing to compact cranks over the last few months.
105 - Easy install, shifts beautifully. Installed on a 8 speed 97 Lemond Buenos Aires - figured the modern crank would look OK on it, the grey matched pretty well.


OnOne Holdsworth Retro crank - used a 107 BB on a 6 speed Raleigh Grand Prix. Only been around the block a couple of times but shifts great, really easy derailleur setup. Doesn't come with spindle bolts or dust covers. Really impressed, thinking about ordering another just to keep around.


Stonglight crank - I'm not impressed, wish I had gone with a suggestion for a Sugino triple and removed the granny. Really tricky to setup the derailleur, doesn't shift well. The large chainring pins don't pickup the chain, the chain rattles on the teeth and when it finally gets picked up it's at a funny angle and get's launched right off the outside. Downshifts will sit and rattle on the small ring and not drop onto the teeth. Played with derailleur angle and settings until I finally got it reasonably reliable.
Installed on a 95 Gazelle Champion Mondial AA Special
The Gazelle has a braze on front derailleur. It couldn't be lowered enough for the compact crank. I was looking at the SRAM derailleurs since they have a second bolt hole so they can be moved down. Just for fun, I took a rough 105 front derailleur I had and drilled and tapped a bolt hole as high as possible. Worked great, got proper adjustment.

Thanks for the review on the Stronglight. I've had my eye on them for a neo-retro project and I'm glad to find out now they're not much chop.

I never really understood the whole compact crank thing. For years the popular racing, and therefore showroom, setup was 42-52/3 with a 13-23ish FW. Then along came the 39-52/3 and guys ran the 12/3-23 for wider gearing or dropped to 12-21 for smoother shifting. This allowed for some pretty good gearing and if you upped the FW to a 12/3-25ish you spread things out more.

Then someone (shipmano I guess to push some new product) decided we had to have compact cranks. I don't really get it. Sure now you have a 12-25 in the back and 34ish something a 48 or 50 something for chainwheels. Seems like that gives you some nice low gearing but you lose in the top. I've never been a good spinner but it seems to me if I am tooling along at 100rpm in a 21x39 you must be cross chaining topped out at 130rpm in the12x36 or crossing again in the 25x48.

I mean that 34-48 crank on you road bike is about the same as the middle and big ring on my MTB.


That Holdsworth crank is beautiful.

BG, if you're tooling along at 100 rpm on a 21/39, I'm in the 50/16 and spinning slower. A compact crank with an 11 or 12 small cog spins out in the mid 30's for me. If I'm going that fast it better be downhill!

I have compacts on some of my bikes, and standards on the others. Average speeds on all of them are just about the same. But if I'm heading out to Skyline Drive or Thunder Ridge, it's gonna be on a 50/34.

Yes, a compact does yield some lower gearing if that's what you're looking for. But for most casual everyday riding, even around here where we have real hills, a standard double with a wide range 12/28 set of cogs will get you up and over pretty much anything.

That's interesting. I have a 50x36 Stronglight awaiting installation on a 1988 Schwinn Prologue for my girlfriend. At least with the Prologue I don't have a fixed braze on attachment point with limited adjustment. I'm replacing a 52-42 up front and a corn cob out back with something more rideable, a 13-26 8 speed cassette.

BG, you don't loose as much top end as you'd think. With a 50 tooth up front you'll still be over 100 gear inches even with a 13 tooth cog out back. Once I spin out a hundred or so gear inches going downhill, I've found it's best just to crawl under the paint on the toptube and enjoy the ride.

I have a 50x34 with a 12-30 cassette on my gravel/trail/all rounder bike. For what it's used for it is great but I do find myself missing the 16 and 18 tooth cogs of a narrow range cassette. My biggest gripe with compacts (50x34) is that unless you run a very wide range cassette, like a 12-30 or so, you end up doing some serious cross chaining on a narrower range cassette. Forget running a 12-23.

Back in the days of freewheel gears, the smallest rear cog was often 14t, sometimes 13t. I think I heard rumors of 12t, but for sure never encountered them. Anyway, 14-52 was commonly the highest gear. As cassettes with smaller cogs became available, the need for large chain rings disappeared. It took people a few years to realize they didn't need such big chain rings any more; and then the compact crank was invented. This had the advantage of making old cranks obsolete, not to mention that smaller chain rings and smaller cogs wear out faster. All in all, it's a win for the industry. Advantages for the rider, not so much.

I'm a fan of the compact crank, whether vintage or relatively modern. It means I can run a cassette with a 26t max, which allows a wide range of RDs. And the gearing overall is quite close to the range I'd get with a triple, but without the weight penalty of a third chainring. And, fwiw, I've been running the Stronglight Impact crank on a couple of different bikes for the last several years and have had no problems, and that's on an 8-speed Shimergo setup. You might want to check your chain alignment and that you used the correct sized BB spindle.

Typical old-school compact double for me--Stronglight 99:


Strong light Impact on my 650B converted Lemond Buenos Aires:

I have an Exage square taper compact, circa '87, so they've been around.
It's just taking up space here, but for a while I figured I'd need it.

That Holdsworth is nice, and there are some modern Sugino's that look pretty spiffy.

I've never really thought much about front-shifting performance, just installed and tinkered 'til it worked.

I'm still running a 42/52 with 14-28 rear on both road bikes, but more and more I find myself coasting down steep hills, so the highest gears would not be missed if I did not have them.

I much prefer a road triple because I still get to keep the standard double with a 52 or 53 big ring. Last weekend I did a tri with a 18.8 bike leg. I had a 52/42/30 up front and 12-28 7 speed out back. 90% of that ride I was on the 52 and 4 smallest cogs. But at the halfway turnaround point there was a steep hill about 400-500 yards long that had many struggling and some walking up. I went to the granny and had a few gears to work with. I topped the hill, turned around, then onto the 52/12. I smoked down the other side laying waste to a lot of riders! I was only on the granny for a short time but it was worth it. You just can't get that with a compact. You have to give up something.

Pat, you should see my new Thunder Ridge setup: 50/34 Sugino compact double, 11/34 cassette, Deore derailleurs front and rear with indexed 10 speed Dura Ace down tube shifters. 50/11 about the same as a 52/12. Shifts like buttah, much better than the Ultegra or DA FD I used before, because the cage is sized for the smaller ring and it's designed for a 16 tooth (or more) chainring difference.

I'll weigh in on the compact double setup. Long before anyone called them that I had set up my bikes with smaller rings. ( I should sue somebody because they stole my idea.) Through the fortuitous accident of it being cheap I upgraded my Peugeot with a Sugino Maxy and later found that the 110BCD gave my a cheap path to lower gears. Also with smaller rings and smaller FW the bike is lighter that using a larger FW.

The point was, I almost never used the 52/14 combination for either sport riding or commuting, and I certainly never needed it. But I was always wishing for lower gears. So why not trade off one big combination for one little one?

Stronger chains, cogs, and chainrings made reduced tooth combinations feasible, although even today, for a given ratio, more teeth will mean greater driveline longevity.

When I worked at a Peugeot/Nishiki dealership in the early 1970s, almost everything, whether for touring, recreation, or racing, came with a 52/14 = 100-inch top, although Bianchi often went as high as 52/13 = 108, and Nishiki thought 54/14 = 104 would be a good idea. After 50+ years of experiments in "gear phreaking" and 100K+ miles on the road, I have concluded that, for me, a top gear in the mid 90s to very low 100s, with a corresponding top cranking speed of just over 30mph/50kph, is perfectly adequate. Since I also want a bottom gear in the low 40s and about a 6-percent ratiometric progression, I cannot afford to waste valuable cog/chainring combinations on stratospheric mashing gears. My road bikes, all 12-speeds, have highs of 45/13, 47/13, 49/14, and 50/14 and lows of 42/26, 38/23, 46/26 (admittedly a little too tall at my age), and 42/26.

The secret to avoiding cross-chaining with a compact crankset is either to do a close-ratio triple (48-45-34/13-15-17-19-21-24, for example, a very nice 40-to-100 range which works with a standard short-cage derailleur) or to use a 1.5-step pattern, in which the ratios on the large ring interlace nicely with those on the small ring, e.g. 46-38/13-15-17-19-22-25-28.

Concur. It resembles the old Sugino Mighty Victory, which was restricted to a 41T minimum inner ring by its 144mm BCD.

The Holdsworth Retro crank uses a 110mm BCD and will mount rings down to 34T.

Yes, of course a bigger ring's bigger radius means less tension in the chain thus less wear on chain and teeth. But the best longevity technique is not to ride at all!

I rode this 51.5 miles yesterday. Its crank is 47-42. I used the 47/14 (~90 inches) combination exactly twice. I certainly did not need anything higher.

Not sure why the references to cross chaining.
Looking a gear calculator with my favorite 12-27 cassette, the 34-14 is very close to the 48-19, no cross chaining required. It is a bit odd to have to shift the rear a couple of gears when you shift the front.
8 speed works about the same with the 14 and 21. Even the 6 speed doesn't require cross chaining.

Watching this topic with interest. I'm thinking about getting a 50/34 crank and a 28t to convert my flatlands bike for a certain hilly ride somewhere is SW Wisconsin. Seems like a quick and dirty fix.

For me personally, the main issue with the 50/34 combination is the 50t is probably too tall unless only riding on flat terrain and the 34t is too low to be useful in any situation other than climbing. If a person needs a 34, it would seem better to go with a triple.

A number of years ago I had set up my wife's bike with a 46/36 but the 36t was a little too low. She now rides a triple with a 46/39/30 and the 39 works well for most of her riding and the 30t is always there when needed.

I've gone from a 52/42 setup I have had for years to a 48/38 and it seems to be a good setup. The bike still has a Sachs 7 speed freewheel with a 12t so I lose nothing over a 52/13 or 52/14 for those very few times I actually use a 12t. So far I've made up any difference between a 34t and 38t on the low side of the freewheel; running a 32t. I am planning to go 8 speed soon and will run a 12-34 cassette that I think will serve me well in every situation. I have been able to run up to a 30t with a DA RD, but I am now running older XTR RD and the setup is quite enjoyable.

John

Nice half-step setup! The old English 3-speeds typically had a top gear of about 88 to 90 gear-inches, and a low of about 50.

I have tried a top gear as low as 52/16 = 88, which was not quite adequate on a descent on which I had to merge with motor vehicle traffic, so I like a 93 (52/15 or 45/13) or slightly higher.

If you are 10 speed, the 105 12-27 is a beautiful thing - it's like having a racer's corn cob and climbing gears all in one cassette.
12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 27

I use TA & TA style (50.4 BCD) cranks and use 46/30 rings with 7 speed 13-28 freewheels or 10 speed 11-32 cassette.

Interesting, and I'd recommend it.
I first rode that ride with a 53/39 and 11-26 rear. I figured it would be fine, and though I wasn't in top shape, figured I was OK.

The night before, at our dinner, a group of young, fit riders came to eat, all modern bike riders, but good chaps nonetheless.
One of them asked me what I was riding, and I told him "regular double, 11-26," to which he replied, "You are going to have some trouble."
He was so polite, and didn't laugh a bit. Like Chrome Molly, he had the ability to think of the obvious without crushing the uninformed.

Thunder Ridge enlightened me to long-cage RD's, where I ran a 53/39 and and a 12-32 9-sp (DA, rare RD, I know).
The 39/30 was good for all but the short, rude hillets at Peaks of Otter, where I went to the 32. It was my "bailout" gear.

Since then, I've looked at gear-inches only briefly, as they're confusing. I'll be running 50/34 -->12-29, medium cage RD, in SW Wisconsin.
I have a 53/39 -->13-34 bike available, 56cm, if someone wants to give it a shot, 10-sp DA DT shifting, fairly fool-proof.
I've often wondered what the Dare would be like with a 650c bike like a Paramount 7-series 650, and a compact setup.

Thunder Ridge has more rolling stuff before the long climb, and then some meandering between the little sharp climbs.
The Dare has a lot more of either climbing or coasting, less mileage of ridgelines or river bottoms.

iab's Bartali ride had by far the best mix of hills, descents, and scenic countryside, spaced for recovery.

By the way, if you haven't sent me your name, homebase, and year/make/model of bike, please do, so we can get you on the list.