-holiday76

Anyone out there who lives in a hilly area running a compact double on a light commuter?

I'm setting up a bike to commute on. Perhaps you could consider it similiar to a rando setup from a gearing/geometery point of view. My area has a lot of rolling hills, and I will load it up somewhat with probably a front rack , a medium sized carradice saddle bag. I won't be packing it for camping or groceries, but I will want to be able to carry some stuff.

Basically what I want to do is shed some weight and uneeded gearing off of my commutering setup.

In any event, I want to run a double instead of a triple. On my current commuter I'm running a triple (52-40-26). I never use the 52t chainring. In fact I only use the 26 on one or sometimes two hills i'f i'm feeling lazy. BTW i'm running a 14-32 6 speed freewheel in the rear. I spend most of my time on the 42 in the front, and the maybe 22-32 in the rear.

So on the double set up I've got a TA Cyclotourist that I'm going to be buying some chainrings for. Here's what I'm thinking of running:

46 big gear in the front

thinking a 32 or 34 t smaller ring in the front

probably a 6 speed wide range suntour winner or in the rear with a 14-34 or so.

I think I'll be ok on the low range, but I might not have enough up top..

I know there are gear calculators our there, and I also realize everyone is different, but I guess I'm just interested if anyone else out there has set up something similiar and what worked for them...

I'm posting this here because pretty much the entire setup will be with vintage stuff. I think I'm going to use my '68 Carlton Flyer frame.

and not to throw a wrench in this but I'd also be open to running in internal hub in the rear if i can get the gearing low enough...

jan nikolajsen 

as you say it's a personal, riding style dependent thing, but for me a high of 46X14 (86'ish gear inches) would be too low. my current 'mountain' set-up of 50X12 is about right, going to a low of 34X28.

that being said, compacts have taken me a bit getting used to, especially if one comes from the 52-42 era. it's a big jump between the rings, not quite useful if one simply needs a little shift in gearing. i would think it works better with the modern 10 speed cogs, where one essentially would stay in the big ring and play the cogs most of the time, even to the point of stretching the chainline issue a bit. then when the occasional grunt comes along, drop into that 34T ring.

-holiday76

it's a good point. I run this setup on another bike

50-34 in the front

i forget if it's a 12, 13, or 14 high gear, but it's a modern 10 speed cassette (campy) with a 29 tooth low gear.

This bike is actually set up similiar to what I was going for, I just wanted to do the same thing with vintage gear.

I suppose i should ride that bike to work a few times and see if the gearing works for me, then maybe just mimic that, only with 5-7 gears in the rear vs 10.

mudboy

I'm in the same boat...currently running a 52/42/30 with a 12-27 and since I live 4 miles from you, I deal with the same hills. I'm looking at the Velo Orange Sugino Alpina 48/34 since I never use my large or small rings. VO also looks to have 34 and 36 inner rings.

Pete

wrk101

I "borrowed" a couple of chainrings from a donor mountain bike and put them on my Lotus, went from a 52/42 crankset to a 48/35, or something like that.

Whatever chainring set up you go to, its all about motor. We have an elderly guy in the area that runs a SS up and down our mountains....

nikkorod

Pete,

I have the same setup now Sugino Alpinia 48/34 with a 12-27 rear. I live just south of you guys and have relatively no problem. The Alpinia ia very nice. Low Q factor and very stiff.

mudboy

nikkorod, did you get the VO Alpina? What BB are you using with it?

Pete

nikkorod

Mine (SUGINO Alpina 2 800D) uses Octalink. I am running 109.5mm

mudboy

Where'd you pick it up?

nikkorod

I picked mine up (in black) from Ben's Cycle. Below is the link. $20.00 cheaper than VO. The ones in the picture are square taper.

https://www.benscycle.net/index.php?m...0&currency=USD

nlerner

On the bikes I ride the most, I have them set up with compact doubles in the 44-48t/30-34t range. These are Stronglight 99 or 49D or TA pro vis 5 cranksets. I spend most of my time in the bigger ring (and most are with a freewheel or cassette with 13-30 range).

Neal

sced

My wife and I are running Veloce 50x34 compacts with 14x28 7spd SunRace freewheels and they work perfectly, hers with a 1st gen Chorus RD and mine with a 1st gen Athena RD. The Veloce cranksets are quite inexpensive and look great.

https://cgi.ebay.com/Campagnolo-Veloc...item51934d3eb6

https://cgi.ebay.com/CAMPAGNOLO-VELOC...item5193306e7b

Dylansbob 

I'm running compact on both my bikes. My non-vintage nashbar touring frame build has 50-36 rings with a 8 spd 32 max mountain cassette (and Wald double baskets full of supplies) My Falcon has mismatched 48-36 rings to an old Winner touring freewheel with a 30t big sprocket. I'd love to run a Biopace compact gearing, but I can't find a Biopace 36t ring

RobbieTunes 

I find the compact to be a very interesting development. I spent 70 miles mashing Saturday, while two tri-bikes with compacts were up and down the rings and cogs, smooth and consistently spinning. Neither had any problem climbing. I learned a lot about riding my traditional double just watching them dance the chain on the compacts.

-holiday76

so for some real world experience, i rode in this morning on my compact geared Bianchi (50/34 13-29 ten speed). I had no load except for my 6'3" currently 230lb fatness. I worked out really well. The one short but steep as heck hill was doable in the 34-29, however with any type of load I'd probably want to be geared down some.

So now I'm thinking a good rando type setup, that i could ride with a light load in the hills all day might be something like:

50 or 48 big ring in front - no smaller than 48 as the 50 is pretty usable right now.
32 or maybe 30 small ring in front.

then throw a 8, 9 or 10 speed touring setup int he rear with a 34t big ring. I think with a 34 I might get away with a 32 small in the front...

I do wonder how different say 34f 34rear is as compared to 32 front 30 or 32 rear is...

OK I give up, what's a good user friendly online gear calculator?

rhm

I use Sheldon Brown's gear calculator all the time... or isn't that friendly enough for you?

If you need a 48T large ring for your TA crank, send me a pm.

RFC

Quote:

Originally Posted by wrk101

I "borrowed" a couple of chainrings from a donor mountain bike and put them on my Lotus, went from a 52/42 crankset to a 48/35, or something like that.

Whatever chainring set up you go to, its all about motor.

I think you are talking about me.

RFC

First, I think compact cranks are great and, maybe other then heavy loaded touring in mountainous terrain, which I am not going to do, can't think of a circumstance where I would take a triple over a compact double.

I have compacts on 3 bikes, all 50/34:

Airborne Spectre Tri bike 11-28 (may change to 11x23)
Litespeed Appalachian 12x27
Land Shark Cyclocross 12x25

I ride plenty of hills and haven't found anything that is not relatively easy with those combinations.

Couple of things to keep in mind.

I set up my bikes, all 9-speeds, so I can run through the cassette with either chain ring. Yes, I am cross chaining like hell, but so what. What it gives me is, essentially, two separate gearing systems. And, generally, I don't do a lot of shifting between the big and small.

Thinking in terms of gearing, remember that three teeth on the big ring equal roughly on tooth or, on larger cassette rings, one ****ional gear shift on the on the rear. So, high of an 11 with a 50 equals a 12 on a 52 or 53. A 14 on a 52 is roughly a 14 on a 50. So go higher with your cassette.

I tried a 32 once and couldn't figure out where I would ever use it. Even spinning at 1:1, gyroscopic balance was minimal.

cs1

Sorry to bring back a dead thread but, I was thinking about getting one of these from Ben's. Do it work with 10 sp?