A very interesting thread. My Cannondale T1 came with a 50/39/30 X 11-32 geartrain giving me 122.7 GI's at the top and 25.3 at the bottom. It wasn't the ideal set-up for touring and to be quite frank made little sense even when I was riding without my trailer. The top ratios were too high even on the downhill runs. I could spin but not spin out. I swapped out the crankset for a 46/36/24 unit and I now top out at 112.9 GI's and have a granny sitting at 20.3. That gives me the bottom end I need for pulling the trailer up a hill but still sticks me with too much gear at the top. I'll get a 13-29 cassette when I wear out the present unit. That'll give me 95.5 GI's for a top end and 22.3 at the bottom. My goal would be to have more usable gears at the top end knowing that I will probably spin out on the big downhills.

My singlespeed road bike is set up with 73.6 gear inches and I find that it requires some power work to get up the steeper hills and I spin out on the downhills. But it has made me a much smoother spinner.

I'd like to put a road bike together with a 46/36 crankset married to a 12-25 rear. With a 27-28mm tire that would give me a usable 102.6 GI's high to a manageable 38.5GI's low. Not necessarily competitive on the local racing circuit or the club paceline but it should be quite usable for the 58 year old century rider / day tourist. Al

I started using a 48/36 double a long time ago, then switched it to 48/34. From what I've seen since then, 48/34 seems to be a fairly standard compact double arrangement. (For example, Velo-Orange makes a nice crank like that.) It works for me with a standard 14-28 rear. I sure don't need high gears above 48/14. Sure I can spin it out going downhill but I can't see the need to waste energy pushing into the ever-increasing drag at that speed. I ain't racin', you see.

On your Cannondale T1 you are doing much what I went thru on my tour bike. There are so many ways to look at this and of course you need a low range for climbing loaded and pulling the trailer etc. and it’s tempting to look at that top gear and see how basically useless it is. You start changing the ring gears smaller to bring down the top and then in my case I found the center ring became my problem being too small to give me the best range against all the cassette cogs. This dawned on me when I tried a mountain crank that put me in the perfect range overall but split my normal riding gears between the two biggest rings and I hated doing that front shift right around cruising speed. Also anyway you set it up the harder shift will be between the center and the granny, and when going that direction I’m climbing to some degree and making that jump back up to the center I don’t want to be doing while climbing. When I started factoring it all together for me I started thinking about ranges of gears and not just the high and low point of the overall range. I figured on my 9 cogs I wanted to be able to use all 9 off the center ring and cover as wide a range of tour riding as I could without a front shift. I wanted the granny ring to give me another wide range of climbing gears and use the 6 largest cogs. I began to see the large ring as mostly useless and many on here told me it’s just there for one or two more high gears. Others said they just don’t use it or take it off, use it like a double etc.

I started doing a bunch of what if’s on a gear calculator program and remembering what cadence I actually ride at in different gears on different grades. I also started seeing how I could make good use of the big ring if I matched its size to the middle ring to allow half step with the cassette of choice once I came to the conclusion what center ring was right for me. I ended up back with my original road gears the 52, 42 that I started with only with a 12-36 cassette. I then surprised myself by trying a 24t granny with that setup and found the shift 42 to 24 wasn’t that bad as long as done as a soft shift. And I loved the granny range once I got down there. The 100 GI and the 116 GI are pretty high and I don’t anticipate spinning out in them, but once again I took some advice from a member here who suggested using them at a slower cadence rather than coasting on longer down hills. I really never thought about doing that but once I did I found keeping the legs moving and warm was good and I also felt more in control while adding a little speed still. I’m always finding new uses for those two tall gears. The other night I fought a head wind out and with the tail wind helping on level ground I started working my way down the cassette on the big ring and lowering my cadence just a little. It felt really easy doing about 45 RPM with the 52/12 combination. I didn’t feel at all that I was mashing or wrecking my knees with a 20MPH tail wind.

I’m finding spinning for me is the best way to go as the gearing gets lower. And under some conditions less spin gives a nice change of pace to the ride. I also have found we are not all equal and you have to evaluate yourself and adjust as required.

I don’t do the half step a lot but every now and then because the cassette is widely spaced I’m grinding along on the flats and wanting just a little more or less cadence than the next gear gives and I will do the double shift. That for me is far outweighed by having a real tight cluster but not the range on a touring bike. On my much lighter road bike with a double I like the tighter spacing.

I used & enjoyed a 46/38 Cyclocross crankset with an 11-25 ten speed cassette. The bike was very fast on flatter routes, fast enough for most of the group rides in my area.

I really liked staying on the 46t chainring at speeds greater than 13 mph and having a tight range of cogs above 20 mph without ever shifting the front chainrings.

http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/l...Jan2010012.jpg

I have a 38/16, and a 53/16, on 2 bikes each has a Rohloff hub.

The difference is wheel size .. 26" and a 20"..

Hi,
I'd like to switch the cassette on my Ruby to something with a 30 or 32 gear. Is there a cassette of comparable or better quality than Ultegra that has a 11-30 or 12-32 gearing?

Thanks!

Ultegra is quite a high spec and as such will command a highish price. 12/30 is available in Tiagra that may sound like a downgrade but will do the job but I do believe that there is now an Ultegra 11/30 available.

11/32 is available in Shimano LX but you may require a long reach Rear Derailleur to be able to fit it.

Sram in the PG1070 range do an 11/32 and a 12/32 but may require the change of derailleur again.

In fact even going to a 30 on the cassette "May" require a longer reach rear Derailleur- depending on what your current one can handle so be prepared for that as an "Extra" expense.

Some may find a touring triple up front to be worth while. 24/36/48 with cassette of choice makes for an interesting gearset for riders who no longer like to pull the big gear. It's even more interesting if you combine it with a mountain cassette.

http://bike.shimano.com/publish/cont...0.-type-..html

This looks like the Ultegra with 12-30!

Tabriz

But, where to find it?

You can't yet but the Tiagra works great. Rumor is that theUltegra will be out in late summer.

Within the year I'm getting that Defy Advanced and I'm going straight at that Ultegra 12-30. I've been drooling over it for awhile now.

What Ruby do you have? You may be able to drop an Apex 11-32 or a Tiagra 12-30 right in. I used to run Tiagra. There is certainly no shame in it.