Well, i find on flats, my little ring is a bit to small, and the big ring a tad to big, and i hate going between them, i'd much rather flick between gears in the rear. Additionaly i have a tuff time on some of the tuff hills, i wanted some ever so slightly easier climbing gears.
My purposed switch is to replace my 12-25, with a 11-28, and my big 53, with a 49.
I worked out the numbers as follows below;

I can still keep the same speeds on the big ring for sprinting and such, but the little ring now has the range of speed i would preffer for average long rolly rides (40-27km/h), and 2 better climbing gears for the steap ones around here.

It's less expensive then converting my double to a triple, but i'm open to other ideas.

Feedback appreciated.

kinda makes me wish there was a 15 speed

Who sells a 49? is it a 130mm or a 110mm?

Edit: um you only get 1 lower gear with that setup

Why are you putting a 49T ring on there?

Why not just use a 12-27 with your 53/39? (then you get better gear spacing)

how about switching to a compact double? You could even go with like a 36/50 up front instead of the normal 34/50.

that is a good question... i was just punching numbers last night to see what would work, seems 49 is kinda "rare". i beleive it's a 130mm



the last 2 gears are a bit easier that's all i'm looking for there.


just to clarify, i'm looking for a faster small ring, that still has some good climbing, and roughly the same big ring speeds.

No only one and your own post shows it. A 39-24, your second smallest future gear, is bigger than a 39-25 your current smallest gear. Unless you are talking about just the dinner plate instead of the salad plate.

Personally I think you would be better off with a 50-36 or 50-34 compact crank and a custom 11-25 where you get rid of your current 14 spocket and add an 11.

The 11-28 cassette you are talking about (from Sheldon Brown, right?) is pretty good cassette for something of its kind, but why would you want the bigger gaps when a 12-27 with a 53T ring does a better job.

If you really want a 28T IRD makes a 12-28 9s https://www.interlocracing.com/cassettes_steel.html. Then you can keep the 53T ring and get what you want.

With all due respect to you, what's the point? You will have invested quite a bit of money in parts to obtain a very minimal change in gearing. I doubt you'll even be able to feel the difference.

If it was my bike, I'd slap on a 50/34 or 50/36 compact crankset. If you think that you use your 53/12 a lot now, get a new cassette that has an 11 tooth small cog and it will give you about the same high gear ratio. Otherwise just stick with what you have until you can see how the easier hill climb gear feels.

The drawback to compact doubles is that they frequently make it necessary to shift a couple of rear cogs when you change front chainrings. If you can figure out a chainring/cassette combination that lets you do most of your flatland riding in the middle of the cassette, you can minimize that issue.

The good thing about compact doubles is that it's a fairly economical way to regear your bike. It doesn't make sense for a guy like me to have essentially the same gears as Lance anymore than it would be to put a Ferrari transmission in a Volkswagen. When I changed to a compact double I got rid of the highest gears that I never used, added some easier hill climb gears that I needed and the only thing that I had to buy was the crankset. I love it.

I would run a 50-34 with a 11-21 10 speed cog.

I'm going to run a 50-34 - 11-23 just as soon as I can find a viable justification for getting the carbon compacts

that sounds so nice....I run a 11-23 for rolling hills and flats and a 50t ring is perfect for that small cog set.

I've been contemplating the jump to a Gossamer 50/34 with a 12-23 rear cluster, but can't justify the added cost right now. I seem to be doing fine with my 53/39 and 12-27, so I'm in no big hurry to change over.

FYI a 34-23 is 38.8 gear inches and a 39-27 is 38 gear inches so you are not gaining anything on your low end by doing this.

I thought about doing it mainly to be able to use more of the casette and to have smoother gear transitions rather than to open up my bottom end. I have the gear charts at home and realize there isn't going to be a huge change, which is why I'm not in any hurry to make the change.

seems you answered your own question, this is exactly what i'm trying to do, instead of jumping from little ring to big ring all the time, i want to get a faster 11-28 cassett so i can stay on the 39 longer on the flats, instead of jumping from little ring to big ring every 5 minutes on my 12-25 cassett. The reason i don't want a standard 11-23 or something is cause when i do hit the odd hill (my 1km driveway) i want the 24 and 28 climbing. The 49 or 50 big ring was just something else i was tossing around.

i'm starting to see what your guys are saying with this compact stuff though, instead of getting a new cassett to meet the needs of my double, just get a new double to compensate for the cassett... something like a 50/36 looks interesting, and it would get me up on the big ring instead of tryingto hold on to the little ring, hmm......

oh....I see....I put a 11-32 with a 53-29 set for my brother and he loves it [had to put a mtb r-derl on and a new chain] I works to for hil b/c he has never had anything other than 6 speed so the jump to 9 speed was almost mind bogl-n for him.

Did you mean to say 53-39? otherwise, that is a 24 tooth jump, wow. What FD can do that?

one button to the right plz 39

problem with the 11-32 is the HUGE gaps in gears between the bigger cogs... I believe the top two are 32 & 28, which is a 4t jump. Trust me, you'll notice it. I run a 34/50 & 11-23 in the rear and I love it. I've not found any situations in which I'm under-geared or over-geared. There's a few hills that give me issues in 34/23, but I can stand up and power over them. I'm glad I didn't go with the 11-21 corncob or I'd probably frickin die.

well after attempting a crit race today seems i'm just slow, i spent the entire race on the big ring, cause the feild was cruising at 40k/h so i guess is should start ridding big ring more often, then i won't die after 25 minutes Maybe i'll spend some time building up my legs instead of buying new gears

I've never seen a 11-28 for sale anywhere - what make/model is that?

I know there's a SRAM 9-speed 12-27 cassette, the PG-970 - Are you sure you wouldn't be happy with a 39-27 'bottom' gear?

IRD makes a 9s 11-28. They also make a 9s 12-28.

But my point is why reduce the chainring to 49T to make the 11T work when you could just buy a 12-28 and be done with it?

TA Specialites makes 49T rings, and others in 1-tooth increments. https://www.specialites-ta.com/produits/plateaux_gb.htm

But to heck with all of that screwing around - I'm happy with 52/39 and 12-25 (10v) until it wears out, then I'm going to change the small ring to 38T and the cogs to 12-23. I won't have the gap between 17-19 when in the 52T, and 38/23 will be a low enough granny.

I've got a 53-39 with a 12-25 in the back and was considering going to a 53-36 in the front to get more gear separation and access to smaller gears. Does this make sense to anyone? It seemed like a fast, cheap way to get more gear. Does it work?

Anyway, I'm a noob here so be gentle...