79pmooney

I second FB. Have the dealer put on a triple. Keep your cassette decently small and your jumps likewise small. Gives you better gear choices. In the west, the hills can be very long. Having the right gear can be huge. Plus there are false flats that go on forever. Again, the right gear ... And if you spend a weekend with yhour bike in the midwest and do a ride with friends, you will still have good gears.

I have been riding triples forever. Discovered 52-42-28 40 years ago and still love it. I have used variations on that on every geared bike I hae had since my racing days except I spent one year on a 53-39. Hated it, went triple and never looked back. Always felt that making that 39 a 34 would just make the gear choices worse when I wasn't going uphill. And uphill, having that little inside ring was, well just the way to go.

Ben

noodle soup

Of course a triple will require a new shifter too, so it's not that easy to swap to a triple on this bike.

79pmooney

I said nothing about going triple being cheap. But limiting yourself because of the shifter that's spec'ed? Good move for the month after you make the purchase because your bank statement looks a little better. But 5 years from now, you'll still be cursing the move you didn't make.

Ben

noodle soup

I simply wouldn't buy this bike, if I needed a triple. It's no longer a good deal if it needs a drivetrain swap.

Dean V

Putting a triple on is rather limiting with your shifter options, but then they will probably tell you to use bar end shifters!
A double shifts better on the front too.
Just stick with the compact and get a medium cage derailleur with 11-32.
Another option is a 30/46 crankset. 46-11 is still a higher gear than the 52-13 that these guys probably had on their triples they are reminiscing about.

HTupolev

How?

The extra chainring means that triples usually have smaller jumps between chainrings. This allows front shifts to be considerably snappier, especially upshifts which can pretty much flutter into place without any obvious lifting time when there's only a ten-tooth difference. With wide-range doubles, the upshift always has a kind of sluggish resolution, no matter how smooth and consistent the mechanism is.
The tighter spacing also means that front shifts need to be compensated with fewer rear shifts.
Both of things combined can make front shifting less disruptive to rhythm.

While it's a little counterintuitive, triples can sometimes also allow you to get away with fewer front shifts. The cassette spacing on doubles can leave a lot of riders feel like their gearing range is split between the big and small rings, with triples allowing a better-centered ring to spend most of the time in.

Dean V

The front mech is further away from the chainrings for Granny to middle ring shifts. Resulting in more chain flex and worse shifting between those gears. Yes, when set up right they still shift fine but modern compact doubles are better and far from sluggish.
Also a compact with a fairly wide range cassette, eg 11-32, doesn't require much front shifting. You can basically ride everything on the big chainring and just drop it down to the small one when you need to climb a proper hill.

Racing Dan

I agree the jump on a 34/50 is quite large, but "the right" shifting technique does help smooth it. That is, if you are shifting up, 34>50, then do the compensation shifts first. Assuming a 34/50 and 11-28, its 13>17 then 34>50, in short order. This untensions the chain, making the shift much easier. Shifting down 50>34 its the other way around, first 50>34 then 23>17.

On a Shimano system, with the above combination, the compensation shift is 3 cassette cogs both ways. This incidentally is exactly what you get with a full lever throw or, obviously, 3 clicks. Easy peasy :-)

Racing Dan

What combination would you suggest then?

generalkdi

Practice using only the 2 bigger chainrings of your triple, you'll be fine when you'll switch to compact.

Dirt Farmer

Ain't that the truth!

Mindcrime

Defense of the triple just doesn't make sense to me. an 11 speed compact gets you all the low gearing you had on the triple with a cassette change. It's lighter. It's more easily tuned. It's less problematic shifting under load. There are more replacement parts available and a wider range of compatability. Triples can and should go the way of the dodo. And I love classic rides, and have rebuilt several steel beasts. Clearly the market, and the cycling public agrees.


Stay with the compact. Get a new rear cassette. The short cage will run a 32, I have one doing so now, and have put 15000 or so miles on the setup. If you want a 34 to GAIN compared to your old triple, get a GS RD.

noodle soup

I'm sure you have no need for a triple in Houston, but some people ride in the mountains, and carry heavy loads(loaded touring or overweight bodies).

Triples aren't for everyone, or every situation, but they definitely serve a purpose. I very rarely use the Disc Trucker with it's Campagnolo Record triple drivetrain, but when I do it works flawlessly.

Mindcrime

Amazingly enough, I can still go ride hills in areas that are not Houston I may have even climbed a couple small mountains. And I am a clyde at 245.


It comes down to gear inches. You can get the same ratio on a compact double as you can on a triple. With all the other benefits I mentioned.


The only reason to stay with a triple is nostalgia.

noodle soup

tomato coupe

The small ring on a compact double is a 34, whereas the small ring on a triple can be a 26. That's a pretty big difference.

rm -rf

The 50-34 chainrings with an 11-32 should work for you.


Here's your 50-39-30 triple and the 11-28 cassette, at typical flat road cadences. 50 chainring in blue (it's likely that you actually have a 52, which would shift the speeds up about 1/2 mph.)

I have a similar triple setup on one of my bikes. The middle chainring is really nice for moderately flat rides, with a range from about 12 mph up through the low 20 mph range. I rarely use the big chainring, mostly on downhills or big tailwinds. Triples are fantastic for getting close shifts over a very wide range of speeds, without the tradeoffs of a compact double. Too bad they are getting rare.

Many triples are geared lower:
Like the previous comment noted, triples often have a smaller chainring than a 30 (and often a wider range cassette, too). So they can go way lower than a road bike double. That's very good for loaded touring, or for very long, very steep climbs. The rider can sit and spin at high cadences on a much steeper hill.



~~~~~~~

The new bike's stock 50-34 and 11-28. This lowest gear, 34-28, is about one rear shift higher than your 30-28 lowest gear.



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A swap to an 11-32 cassette. This lowest gear, 34-32, is actually slightly lower than your current 30-28.
The 34 chainring works very well all the way up to about 20 mph, so you can still avoid having to shift the front chainring on flat to rolling roads.

The tradeoff is big cadence jumps in the big ring from 20-24 mph. I like closer shifts at 20-24 mph, where I'm going all-out to hang onto a fast group ride.

But I really like a low 34-32 gear, I can stay seated on 10-11% grades, climbing slowly at a low cadence, but with easy to moderate pedal pressure -- I'm not "grinding" up the hill with strong pedal pressures. With a 34-28 low, I probably have to stand up if it's steeper than 8%.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Custom 14-32!!
Here's my 14-32 build post. I mostly ride this 14-32 now. It's got very close shifts from 15-25 mph, and the 34-32 low for the steep hills. The downside is I spin out around 29-30 mph. It's perfect for me.

I change back to 11-32 if there's going to be long downhills -- I like to at least soft pedal on longer downhills instead of coasting the whole way. Or if it's an easy paced ride, with lots of 14-18 mph speeds, so I don't have to shift the front as much -- the 11-32 goes to 20 mph with the 34 ring.

~~~~~

Charts clipped from the useful Mike Sherman's Gear Calculator.
Here's a link for the 50-34 and 11-32 settings. It notifies you that the URL contains these settings, so you can save/bookmark that page.

Charts change on the fly as you modify gears, tires, and cadences.

seypat

Nostalgia? Maybe if you are doing "competitive riding" AND have one of the drivetrains that can dump multiple gears at the same time. Otherwise, give me a triple AND friction every time. If there is one thing I hate, it is hitting a lever, and only moving one gear at a time. With the triple, you can get from one end of your cassette to the other with less shifter action. With friction, you can get to any gear you want with 1 or 2 movements of the shifters. That is what is important to me.

DiabloScott

Whenever these questions come up though, it's about CONVERTING to a triple.

Lots of folks like triples, lots of folks don't have a gripe with the weight or shifting... but if you want one you should get a bike that already has one. OP's looking at a new bike, if he doesn't like the components he should look at a different bike.

noodle soup

Exactly.

I would never buy a new bike, and convert it to a triple, UNLESS it was an insane deal on the new bike. In the OP's case, it isn't really a great deal, even if he wasn't changing anything.

HTupolev

I currently have two modern triple setups in my stable, "modern" here meaning that the parts are compatible with each other and new enough to use a non-straight FD cage. They never balk at all on any shifts. It's all smooth and fast and resolves near instantly.

Here's one. This is in the stand, but the system is just as fast and smooth on the road under tension:


The other is much newer, and works just as well.

All of my modern front shifting setups behave consistently. The triples just shift faster, because the leaps are smaller.

One of the reasons that some people end up front shifting a lot on their compacts is gear spacing. A Shimano 50-34 11-32 11-speed drivetrain has an unavoidable 15% ratio gap right around 90 gear inches.

seypat

I have done numerous tests within a manufacturer(if they have both a 2x and 3x available) to see which is the lighter setup. The most recent was 10 speed SRAM. The thread was either on here or on Slowtwitch. I list the parts for each, the weights(directly from the website) and the results. If the compact 2x has to go 32t or more to match the range, the 3x is the lighter setup. Every time this has been the outcome. This was comparing a 2x vs 3x with the same number of cogs in the back. Take 2 or 3 cogs from the cassette and the 3x becomes even lighter. In fact, the only weight advantage the SRAM 1x with the WiFli held over the 3x was no FD/shifter. Add either one of those and there was no weight advantage. The reasons? Big pie plate cogs in the back are heavier than the small 3rd ring/hardware. You also have to run a big RD in back with 2x. Not so with 3x. The FD weights are not much different. That is what I have found no matter if you are running SRAM, Campy or Shimano.

79pmooney

My good bike has a 53-42-28 in front. It's an older Shimano 105 Hollowtech and I don't know if it is 130 BCD or 110 BCD. Inner ring is 74 BCD. Bike is running 9-speed Campy in back and is shifted DT friction. (I went Campy because me going to brifters where the brake levers do the shifting is a crash waiting to happen and I've done my share already. Brifters are still a few years away for me.)

I have a couple of wheels and have cogs/assemblies to run anything 12,13 or14 to 23,25 or 28 depending on my conditioning and rides planned. The 12-25 is a good compromise most of the time. (My old racing freewheel was 13,14,15,17,19. I absolutely loved those gears. Still do. I'm just no longer the animal that could climb anything on that 42-19. Any cassette missing any of those 5 feels "lacking". I do often omit the 13 and have a 12 to 14 jump so I can keep the 16 and have a high gear for the big descents around there.

I see gearing as being as personal as bike fit. I don't like being told by manufacturers what gears or shift patterns I should be riding. And limiting my frame choices to those offered with triples? Most stock bikes with triples have frames I would not chose for my riding. And there just aren't many of them so choices are quite limited.

Ben

79pmooney

Hey, we are having a serious discussion here. Don't screw it all up with facts!

Besides, it's fun to gloat about how much more weight I lug over hills with my triple. (Now the 1X setup that was light was my 28 x 13-21 TA crank and 5-speed I used to climb Mt Washington a few decades ago.) 195 gm Cyclone racing derailleur! Short chain. (I left the 95 gm FD and shifter on. I converted the bike after racing a very hard 5 hour race to climb the mountain the next day. Had to keep the work brain-dead simple. Pulled the racing cranks, put on the TAs and swapped the rear wheel. Took off the WB cages.)

Ben

beermode

damn....burn.