Seeing how much rage seems to be summoned by the thought than anybody not a pro would use 53-39 chainrings, I thought I'd stir up another hornets nest. I got a knackered old racer to turn into fixed. The chainrings are 53-42. Anybody want to spew bile at the mere suggestion that anyone would use such a thing? This bike certainly wasn't marketed at pros, back in the 80's...

42T is perfectly good with FG.

I was using a 1x10 42T with 11-23 yesterday and it was pretty good for just rolling flat lands.

Actually 42T was the norm in the 80's. Usually 52x42 - very common.

My first real bikes back in the 80s were all 52x42 up front....and a 13-21 6-speed freewheel in back to start with...no problem. With the friction shifters of the day, I found that pretty easy to shift between rings while simultaneously changing a cog (at most two) in the back to find the next bigger (or smaller) gear...all with one hand, and pretty quickly too. That's the set-up I first rode in the Alps...

By the late 80s I had a funny bike for TTs, which had a steep seat tube and braze on FD which wouldn't allow for a 39T chainring....ran that with 53x46 up front, and rarely used the 46......

no bile here....

While 42 tooth was around, I don't think it was necessarily the norm...

I have had several bikes from the 80's and they mostly have had a 39 tooth small ring. Except for those marketed to racers and racer wannabes, especially bikes targeted to triathletes.

52/42 was the norm for race bikes for a good time.

If you don't need the lower gears the 39 gives you the 42 will shift a bit better than a comparable 39 tooth ring, and a bit tighter spacing.

If you don't need a lower gear, I wouldn't change it. If it's not low enough for you, then going to a 39 tooth ring is pretty easy and inexpensive.

54 x 42 is used in TT setups these days.

my first race bike (Peugot) back in the 80s when I was but a wee lad had 42t inner ring. Also, I converted an old racer last year and just used the inner 42t ring instead of trying to find french threaded BB and new cranks etc.

I am having difficulty parsing that statement. Are you saying that you think that non-pros using 53/39 causes rage or that non-pros not using a 53/39 causes rage?

Was there any point to your post other that trying (unsucessfully) to cause controversy?

There isn't really much marketing directed exclusively to pros, but there is certainly marketing directed at "racers", or just performance-minded people in general (retro-grouches often call these people "pretend racers")

+1

The old Campy cranks BCD was 144 mm and most folks copied Campy's standard. You couldn't put a 39 tooth chainring on it.

No problem with putting a 39 tooh chainring on a 130 mm Shimano crank, though.

I was skimming a copy of Velonews from earlier this year and Hincapie was talking about his Roubaix set up: 53-44 on the front, 12-25 on the back. Seems that would give you a really tight spread of ratios, but it's mostly flat.

The bike I got as a junior in 1977 had a Stronglight crank with a 52/42 setup and a 15-21 5sp rear freewheel. I didnt get a 53/39 crank until the early 90's. My TT bike cranks are 54/42.

I will probably make the switch to a compact crank on the new CAAD9 when I get it.

if you want to troll, then at least put some effort into it.

Oh well, I managed to get someone angry at me...

Where are all the people who evangelise about compact cranksets?

Anyway, glad to hear that 42 tooth is acceptable, awesome riding the alps on one! It seems enough gears to me, just short rolling hills around here.

A friend of mine collects antique bikes. He explained that when deraillers first appeared, people were so used to riding fixed that they only wanted 1T gap between each gear. Then someone discovered that if there's a 3Tdifference between the chainrings, you got a spread equivalent to 10 gears each with 1T difference. You just had to keep jiggling back and forth between chainrings to keep in the right gear.

Where do you see anger? I was confused.

Mostly in your imagination. People get defensive about their compact cranks when challenged (e.g. "anyone should be able to ride a standard crank"), but I don't usually see people going out of their way to say the opposite, that everybody should be using compact cranks. Compacts are useful when a lower range of gearing is appropriate, either for the rider and/or the terrain. For example, maybe strong people that normally ride a standard crank chose to ride a compact at Everest Challenge. I used to use a compact but switched to a standard as my strength increased, and to help train increased strength.

Obviously they are acceptable or they would not exist. Things do not need to be blessed by the BF brain trust to be acceptable. BF is far removed from reality.

Yep, my 1985 Bridgestone 600 has a Sakae 52/42 crankset. I still put ~80 miles/week on that bike, it's a nice size crank. Not sure I'd want that for my climbing bike, but for semi-flat rides it rocks.

I set up my first really good bike with 52/45 on the front and 13-17 on the back. It gave a very tight spread. And it wasn't flat in West Virginia. But it was cool to have big gears, and a small freewheel.
I was stupid.

I ride on flat terrain, have a 42 and prefer it over the 39.