So your query about swapping out chainrings for a 50-34 now has me rethinking my advice. Maybe I (we) could use that extra low gear, after all. 34/34 is sounding pretty good for making the steepies a little less unpleasant. I seem to be finding myself more often on grades upwards of 15%, and since building strength in these old leg muscles is getting harder each year, a little less mashing might be nice.

I'm thinking of getting the 4iiii power meter, also, as you mentioned. They show a crankset in my size on the website. Their "works as an AirTag" feature is kind of nice--no need to find a place to hide an AirTag on the new bike. Any advice?

What, somebody besides you choosing your routes these days? ;)

It's that "let's see this road I've never ridden on before" syndrome.

Also, I just entered a drawing to win an entry to the Haute Route, and the organizers choose the route:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...0cba006e7a.png

Nice! Or, should I say, Nice!

Personally, I've ridden so many of the roads within 30 miles ride from my house that I'd be hard pressed to find a new one and still get home for dinner.

i like the 4iiii products. my aethos came with the precision pro, which was the dual sided predecessor to the precision 3+. i later purchased just a left side precision 3+ for my scott addict rc eride, and recently pulled that crank (the same dura ace 12 speed crank and rings as the aethos came with) and sent it to 4iii to get the right side added. i put the 34t little ring on that one, so now i have one with 52-34 and the precision 3+ dual side, and the other 52-36 with the older precision pro dual side.

my comments on the 4iii stuff in general is - great, but not perfect. the pairing has been occasionally glitchy, and i have had an issue with the older one where the battery cover cap cracked due to incompatibility between their plastics and the kind of cleaners people use on drivetrains these days. a well documented issue, and they were very responsive to tech support when needed. the process of getting the crank upgraded is a little slow, they're in canada, but it all went smoothly.

i probably would not recommend the 52-34 combo to anyone who is really finicky about shift quality, the da 12 speed front der shifts it, but maybe once every 4-5 shifts it takes a rotation or two to get over on the shift from little to big. big to little shifts same as before, rd shifts still instant and smooth as before. i'll probably switch the big ring to 50t on that bike when i see those rings on sale, they're kinda overpriced.

the 5.6% difference between 36-34 and 34-34 is in fact noticeable for me. i'm climbing in the low 80s instead of the high 70s. i like it. i'm certain your power to weight ratio is way higher than mine, so your mileage may vary!

18,800 *METERS* of climbing over 800km and 7 days? That's a lot, at least for me.

it’s quite a lot but the hilly sportives even in the UK will hit 3000m over 160km so it’s a bit more than that on average but not double or anything
I suspect day one will be the easiest :lol: Good luck terrymorse !

i didn’t like the small to big FD shift with 34-52, so i put the 50 on. feeling a smidge lamer but really, a few less MPH on a big descent won’t kill me!

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...66d419149.jpeg

I have the single crank arm version on my plastic bikes and love them. It’s nice to balance HR and power output. It’s also good for long rides trying to keep my power in a certain range. My rain bike doesn’t have one and really miss it, but not enough to spring for a third for very occasional use. My only gripe is no low battery warning on Mr Gamin, like the other sensors - but if I was more dedicated, I could bother to open the screen showing the battery %s.

Good to know. Hmm, 1/2" chain pitch, so two teeth means 1" larger circumference, so 1/pi increase in diameter, and divide that by 2 for increase in radius, equals 0.16 inches. That sure isn't much. Can I assume the 52 chainring is similar to the 50 in terms of shifting ramps and/or pins?

50/34 seems to be the defacto standard these days for replacing a triple on a large wheel road bike that doesn't need absolute-racer highs. I've been very happy with mine, despite running 20" wheels, I still don't need higher than a 50-11, but thank goodness for even cheap modern hubs having an 11T high cog.

Speaking of which, you're on 700c and also have an 11T high; I can't see you needing bigger than a 50T ring, given that racers used to run high cogs of 12 or 13 on 52 or 53 rings.

Does the rain bike have a Hollowtech crankset? I move my 4iiii crank-arm around my bikes regularly, changing takes me a minute.

I agree, not that much difference, but I wonder if the 50/34 was chosen to be at the limit of what was considered to be a smooth shift? Otherwise why would they have not chosen a wider range with less gear overlap?

SRAM have even less ot a drop between their standard setups eg 48/35 and I suspect that was because they had shifting issues with wider combos. Otherwise why would they not go with a wider range?

Correct. 16 tooth difference.

yeah, i’ll admit i expected it to work. they look virtually identical, exactly the same profiles and dimensions other than, as you note, around an eight of an inch in diameter and the resulting two fewer teeth.

it’s possible more adjustment could have helped it, but it looked like what would have been needed was to rotate the cage counterclockwise a bit, and the FD mount doesn’t really want to do that, as it tightens it locks into a certain angle. maybe that’s the way they all are, not much experience there. but i adjusted it several times, used the template, and it was pretty consistent - depending on which cog i was in, it would take a half or full pedal to really grab the big ring. one in maybe 10 shifts it would drop the chain briefly and then engage after some cautious spinning.

i’m not very fast, for sure, but i do ride a lot of hills on every ride and a primary “goal” for me is to keep my exertion very consistent, which means not stopping, which means not coasting downhill. so i like being able to pedal productively at 35-40mph. but i can pedal 4% faster downhill :)

Not so much. 1980s Campagnolo Chorus

True. But Shimano is famous for system robustness and tolerance; Very often their rear derailleurs can accommodate a bit more compacity than their rating.

Also, others on here have done 20T drops for touring bikes back in the day of flat chainrings with no shift ramps or pins. But, upshifts may not have been as smooth.

yes, i’ve run a couple shimano RD with quite a bit wider range than specified, notably with a 10-42 SRAM cassette that shifted very nicely!

today’s ride reiterated that the shift quality was sub par with the 34-52; with the officially supported 34-50 up shifts on the front ring are very fast, not quite as instant and silent as the rear is but the chain engages the 50 as soon as the der moves and by 1/4 turn it’s fully seated.

so, not as conservative here as shimano has been elsewhere.

i also found that as small as the 52-50 difference is, on some rollers i ended up simply staying in the big ring.

It’s not that you can’t make it work. It’s just more clunky to shift. A 16T drop just happens to be the limit where riders might notice a drop off in shift quality when exceeded.

Good to know for the future, thanks! My 50/34 was supposed to come with aluminum rings with ramps and pins, but didn't, it came with steel rings with stamped ramps not as good. I immediately contacted amazon seller and they shipped the aluminum rings as advertised. The steel rings shift fine once I corrected the chainline. Whether ramped and pinned rings can do better, we'll see, my guess is yes. I don't need 52, and I can't go lower than 34 on 110mm BCD. For touring, if I need lower than 21 gear inch, I could try going to a crank with 74mm BCD inner for 30T or lower, however those are hard to find in a 2-piece hollow spindle design with 5 arm spider, which I prefer. Shimano did make before going to 4 arm with that weird fairing interface between the rings and spider. But now, not a worry, I can just go with a wider cassette, and keeping the 50/34 2X, I don't need to go that much bigger a low cog, on 20"/406 wheels.