I have an old Schwinn World Voyageur that has been my faithful steed for several years now. The original rear wheel is beginning to break down and I've been thinking for a while that if I need to get a new wheel I might as well switch to a cassette hub and change over a lot of the drivetrain.

Currently I have a 48/34 crankset and a 7 speed megarange cassette.

It's pretty much perfect for my hilly commute. It doesn't have much top end, but I'm not trying to race anyone riding to and from work. I like that there aren't many huge jumps between gears except at the bottom. And I like that 34x34 for the days when I just want to take it easy going up the hills.

Things that I would change are: 1) There are times when I do want to bomb down some hills and it'd be nice to have some higher gears. 2) I'm thinking about trying some long-distance touring and I'd like to have a lower low end for climbing with a load.

I think I'd like to switch to a 3x8 or 3x9 and I've been spending an inordinate amount of time looking at gear calculators to see what I can achieve and at gear catalogs to see what I can afford.

One option I'm considering is a half-step + granny setup. I have 48/44/28 TA rings from my dad's old bike that are in good condition. I'd need crank arms, longer bottom bracket, rear derailleur, rear wheel, and cassette. With a sunrace 11-34 (11,13,15,18,21,24,28,34) it looks like a pretty good, well-spaced (for the most part), half-step+granny with a huge range. It's also a pretty inexpensive cassette and seems to be pretty easily available.

After playing around with a couple gear calculators, though, it looks like 11,13,15,18,21,25,30,36 with a 48/44/28 would be, dare I say? perfect?

Bicycle Gear Calculator

I know it's possible to mix and match cassette cogs from different sets, but I also know that some models have groups of cogs that are riveted together, and that there are issues with tooth alignment that can affect shifting, etc. etc. It's also not as easy as I would expect it to be to figure out exactly what cogs come on a particular cassette. Does anyone have any ideas how to put together a custom cassette like this? Can I use cogs from a 9-speed cassette with 8 speed spacers and cassette body?

Side question: I've looked at sub compact doubles and mountain triples with various 8 and 9 speed cassettes and haven't found another solution that gives the same range with the same nice even spacing and as many unique ratios. Has anyone else come up with anything that would work as well?

i have done granny and half step with 8 and 9 speed cassettes. if you are going to a 11-34 8 speed cassette i would encourage looking at the 12-34 instead. 11 to anything is damn high geared. also if you want to go to 36 just pick up a sunrace 12-34 or 11-34 then a sunrace 11-36 9 speed. you can remove the 34 and replace with the 36. should work fine. currently i am running 12-36 9 speed with 24-38-41 chainrings.

I kind of agree about the 11 tooth cog... BUT I just rented a bike while on vacation last week that had a 52T big ring and either an 11 or 12T cog. I've never been on a bike with that tall a gear before.. Part of my ride was 6 miles down a hill that ranged from 5-9% grade for most of it, and there was very little of it that I coasted. It was a blast! Don't have any hills around home that are that long and that steep, but there are some at a similar grade that are a mile or two, maybe a little longer. Most of the time I'm content to grind my way up and coast down, but now I've felt the joy of bombing down a big hill. I would like to do it some more...

Different, but the setup I love is 53-42-28 with Campy 9-speed in back. I have cogs of 12-18, the Campy 19,21,23 cluster and a loose 25 and 28. (I have the 13 and 14 tooth cogs as both end cogs and middle cogs so I have a good choice of high gears. I often run 12,14,15 ... skipping the 13 for a more useful middle cog. 53-14 is plenty for the flat and small downhills. The 12 for the big ones. I never miss the 13. Or I can run 13,15,16 ... and the 25 and 28 for long very hilly/hard days and again, have better choices where I will be spending far more time.

Now, I'm an ex-racer. I grew my teeth staying in the appropriate chainring and adjusting over a very closely spaced FW. So I stll ride that way. The FWs (cassettes) got far better! and I've added that inner ring to reflect the realities of no longer racing and no longer being young.

My 28-28 gives my your current low and I could go smaller on the inside cog (down to 24). I'd probably have to mess with the rear derailleur to get it all to work well. Currently I have a used Campy Mirage, age unknown, with some of the best shifting I have ever had on any bike over all the combinations my crankset will allow. (Too much small-small crossover and it picks of the chain and shifts.)

Just trying to give you some food for thought.

Ben

Gear usage is really different from rider to rider because so much is determined by the characteristics of your legs. I actually use the 11 tooth with the 48 if I am running level, especially if I have a tailwind. I've clocked myself with faster cadence/lower gear, and I am definitely faster in the high gear. From talking to people and from what I've read, this makes me weird, but I think it's just a matter of having short thick highly muscled legs--the upstroke on my legs takes more energy than average, and my downstroke is more powerful than average, so I do better with a slower than average cadence at a higher than average gear ratio.

Long point short, I really think it's hard to advise people on 11 vs. 12, and other gearing issues. One thing, though, I can definitely get a bit more speed even on the steepest downhill pedalling the 11 tooth. Even if you never use it for anything else, it's a blast for that.

An idea pointed out to me by another forum member with 11vs12vs13 is that the 11 or 12 is nice to have for your smaller ring, in that if you have an 11,12,13 you could access the 12 without cross chaining.

I have a 13-23 on mine, and I miss the 12-23 mainly because I can no longer use my 39-13 gearing on climbs.

13,15,17,20, 24, 30.. yes just 6... and say a 48,44,28?

use https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gear-calc.html







....

79pmooney, I agree with the gearing you use as it is similar to mine. Had a half-step set up as it was all the rage back in the day and ditched it in favor of a more useful gear range that suits my riding style. Coming from a racing back ground I understand the statement "I'm an ex-racer. I grew my teeth staying in the appropriate chainring and adjusting over a very closely spaced FW" as I still run freewheels in the 6 speed configuration, including my dedicated touring bike.
By the way, Mirage was very under rated by most everyone. It really was a good stout setup and worked perfectly well.

I like it. A 25 in place of the 24 would make the spacing more even. And I'd still like an 11 for steep descents, and a 36 for hard climbing with a heavy load. Which puts me... right where I started.

Is it feasible to use the 11, 13, 15, 17, 20, and 30 and the spacers from an hg51 11-30 8-speed, and the 24, and 36 from an hg400 11-36 9 speed? I don't think it would be worth it to buy a third cassette just to swap the 24 for a 25.

Just curious. I'll most likely just go with a suntour 11-36 9 speed as it is, it's pretty close to what I want, just not quite as mathematically beautiful...

I'm going to call BS on the premise of the original post. Who wants to do a drive train rebuild on the bike to gain, what, 2 or 3 mph on the top end? Why not spin out the 48-14T current top gear by another 10%, or 20%? Going from 100 rpm to 120 rpm would gain you over 5mph. Learn to spin.

Or, change out your large chainring to a 50T and also spin it out. What was Merckx's top gear when he won those TdF's, a 52-14T?

if ti were me I'd buy something and try it before i started buying three or four things and trying to combine them.

i haven't used half-step in a long time---once on gets about 8-9 gears on a cassette, all that double-shifting isn't so necessary. But if that's your determined path .... then I'd still buy the Sunrace and ride around a while. See what works for you.

As [MENTION=484412]livedarklions[/MENTION] notes, each of us has a different body with different capacities. Eddy Merckx might have used some gears ... but I am a Long way from Eddy Merckx.

See what works for you. maybe you will be fine with the Sunrace cassette. after all, what looks good on paper and makes nice neat patterns on graphs is perfect---on paper. On pavement, who knows? Do the test.

There are so many answers here...

1) Some people like to do a drivetrain rebuild just because they enjoy working on bikes. I'm planning to rebuild my drivetrain for a few reasons. a) I have a 45 year old bike and the rear wheel is finally giving up the ghost. b) I want to try indexed shifting. c) I want bar end shifters. d) I have bent the axle on my freewheel rear wheel a few times now and I want a more durable cassette hub. e) I use all of my current gear range and there are reasons that I would like to extend it on both the top and the bottom. fu) It sounds like a fun project.

2) Why do you assume that I am not spinning pretty fast (occasionally) on downhills? Like I said in my original post, I'm hoping to get a high end closer to what was on the road bike I rented while on vacation. It had a 52/12 or 52/11 top gear. My favorite part of the ride was an extended downhill, a lot of it at over 40 mph. At 120 RPM 52/12 is about 42 mph and 52/11 is 45mph. I like that I wasn't spinning out for much of it. I don't always try to go as fast as I can down hills, but now I tried it and I liked it. A 48/11 top gear between 100 and 120 rpm on downhills (35-42 mph) doesn't seem that unreasonable to me.

3) At 100 rpm the difference between 48/14 and 48/11 is not 2 or 3 mph it is 7.5 mph. At 120 rpm it is 9 mph.

4) I don't know what Eddie Merckx winning the TdF has to do with me having fun on my bike, but it looks like he used a 53T big ring on his Tour bikes. He used a 52-14 to set the hour record at 31 miles. So... that's pretty good I guess.

5) Lighten up! and don't yuck my yum.

I'm not coming at this with no experience at all. I used the 2x5 (52/39 14-34) drivetrain that came on the bike for a long time, and while I liked it okay, there were definitely times when I wished I had some in between gears (on rough roads, slight uphills or downhills, into headwind etc.) It was a pretty good 1 1/2 step setup so I could use some of the in between gears fairly easily (but not quite as straightforward as 1/2 step) My current setup (48/34 and 7 speed megarange) is much better in that regard. I use it like a crossover (or dual range or whatever). Sequential shifts give me 10-15% jumps. Not bad and easy to use.

Keeping the same crank (or going with a subcompact 46/30 or something like that) and switching to a wide range 9 speed and using it like a crossover actually takes me back to larger (15-20%) jumps between gears, and I would have to give up a little on the high end or the low end, and a more complicated pattern to find useful in between gears especially as the jump between chainrings gets larger.

I can get a conventional mountain triple and get all the range I want and also get some inbetweener gears that might be useful. The problem being that it's much harder to find the useful inbetweener gears when the system isn't really designed to use them.

With the half-step set up, I'd probably just shift sequentially on the middle ring 80% of the time and get 15-20% jumps which are fine most of the time. Then if I felt like I wanted it just a touch taller or just a touch easier, I'd know exactly where that in between gear lies. It sounds pretty good to me.

Looks like something like a 50/34/20 with 12-27 cassette might be good, too. But I don't know if it's even possible to put together a crankset with that combination and I already have the 48/44/28 rings. I think I might as well get a pair of crank arms and see how it works.

Unless you are racing dont over think gearing. With a triple just look at the 3 front sprockets this way. Granny up hills, center ring for most riding, and big ring down hill and with the wind. Then depending on the terrain just shift across the rear cluster. Make life simple.

I have a bike that's set up exactly this way. I have a standard mountain triple (48/38/28) and a megarange freewheel. I like it. In the big ring I have one overdrive gear, then the two tooth jumps from 16 to 24 give me nice spacing throughout my cruising range. The middle ring works for moderate climbing. I rarely use the small ring. It's reserved for steep climbing and for most uphills when I'm towing my daughter on her tag along.

I thought I might just put the same drivetrain on my daily driver, but I have decided that I want a higher top end. Every crank/cassette combo I have looked at that will give me the range that I want leaves a gap or two in my cruising range that I would like to avoid (except for HS+G). If I use a 48/38/28 with an 11-36 9 speed, I get all the range I need, but I don't like the jump from 15 to 18 or from 18 to 21 in the big ring. Those two shifts jump right over most of the sweet spot of my cruising range. The 13 and 15 sprockets in the middle ring break those up fairly well, but it's a (slightly) more complicated shift pattern to use them than if I were to use HS+G with 48/44 rings. As a bonus, I already have the 48/44/28 rings from an old bike. Just need crankarms.

The only thing I'm still thinking about is a cassette to use with it. 11-36, 9 speed and 12-36, 8 speed are close enough to try it out and see if I like it. My ideal though, would be 11-13-15-18-21-25-30-36 8 speed, or maybe 11-13-15-17-20-24-28-36 8 speed. My hope was that I might get advice on which cassette models were most useful for mixing and matching to make a cassette as close as possible to the ideal, but unsurprisingly, I get mostly second guessing . Oh well.

HS+G wasn't my goal from the start. It's just the best solution I've found to get:
1) Low gear of around 20 gi.
2) High gear around 115-120 gi
3) Easily accessible 5-6 gi steps in the range from 55-ish to 80-ish gi.

You may or may not find that these criteria are useful for your own riding, but I know from my experience that they are all things that I want.

If I've missed a more conventional, cross-over setup that meets those 3 criteria I'd be interested to know what it is.

You knew what you wanted before you wrote this post. Go do it and tell us if it works for you. There is nothing anyone ca say which matters until the rubber meets the road ... or the rollers meet the teeth, I guess.

I might be moved to consider a 33-speed with an MTB front end and a road cassette .... and a three-speed IGH hub.

That will fry some batteries in your calculator.

Yes. I knew what I wanted in that I wanted 20gi low gear, 120gi high gear, and no jumps much over 10-ish% between 55 and 80gi. My question was about different possible ways to accomplish it. Something like a 48/34/20 crankset with an 11-26 or 12-27 9 speed cassette would be pretty close, too... I know that a 40/30/20 crankset exists. Are there 48 and 34 chainrings available for such a crankset?