PeregrineA1 

So the first road tandem is now in the house. Got a good deal on a 1995 Santana Visa. Shimano Deore drivetrain, DiaCompe cantilever brakes. Fits both of us, so all is good.

I'm curious about the gear sets. 54-44-28 and 21-13. 7 speed.

We've got a few hills here and I'm thinking that may be a bit racy for the push home. Is this a typical set-up? Are we just being wimpy?

ct-vt-trekker

Your easiest gear for climbing 28 in front 21 in rear is only 35.69 gear inches. So no you aren't being wimpy. The front 28 is fine but you might want to try to get a cassette of freewheel with a larger back gear maybe with a 28 or 32 for the largest. The only thing bad about that would be larger gaps between each gear, less linear. With only 7 cogs the jumps betwwen each change could be quite large but some people have no issue with that.

D. Railer

Where do people get the idea that some gears are "wimpy"? I've had people tell me that they never go into their granny gear because they always want one gear in reserve. What???

Gears are like golf clubs. If you are not going to use the club get it out of your bag. If you are not using a low gear, find steeper hills. I have no problem with low gears. There is no shame in using them. I gear my bikes with as wide a range as is practical. Just because you have a granny gear it doesn't restrict your speed in the high gears. Gears are friends not a display of your ego.

Dean V

Only person that can say what gearing you need is you. Ride it. If you need lower gears put them on.

mulveyr 

I'm using a Shimano Alpine 7 speed freewheel on my tandem - 14t to 34t. Absolutely love it. The higher gears are spaced for cruising, but there are some hills where we have to dive down into the 34.

brons2

My '93 Burley came with same size chainrings and a 14-28 7 speed cassette in the back. Changed it to 52-39-26 in the front and 12-36 9 speed Shimano in the back. Much happier. Required new rear wheel, rear derailleur, cassette, chain, chainrings and STI shifters.

Also got new longer seatposts (350mm), stem extender (140mm), and handlebars (Nitto Noodlebars 48cm).

Might have been better to find a more expensive newer bike but oh well. I would have still wanted to change components to my liking.

jimmuller 

Yeah, that low gear is higher than the low gear on all my solo bikes. I find that going uphill on our tandem is harder than any solo bike, so we run a much lower gear. If I remember what it was I'd tell you, but I don't remember. FWIW, your big and middle rings are pretty big, so your high gears are high too. Anyway, it isn't wimpy to run whatever gear you need for your terrain and strength.

With a 7-speed on the rear you might want to throw your numbers into a gear calculator like this one.
https://www.gear-calculator.com/#

You may know this already but just in case you don't, here's why I make that suggestion.

With "only 7" cogs you may wish occasionally to run a gear in between two cogs. In the old days you solved that by having the ratios from one chainring fall in between the ratios of another. A common arrangement was to have the big and middle rings be such that shifting front would be equivalent to about 1 1/2 cogs. (And you would want the middle and granny rings have the same ratio. That makes the granny and big ring produce the same gears for a few gears but that's not a problem.) Our vintage tandem has 3 x 5 gearing so our cogs are a bit further apart than yours would be. I don't do the double-shift thing very often, but sometimes it's nice to have access to that in-between gear.

D. Railer

I might add, I do have a granny gear that I am loath to use but have gone to it at times. I call it "walking". When we did the Lands End to John O'Groat's trip from the south end of the UK to the north end there were some hills with over a 20% grade. I had a compact gear set and had a lot of miles ahead of me to the next stop. Yea, kill myself up a grade like that. What for? I did use it on the last 1/4 mile of climbing the Teton Pass. That wasn't because the gearing was wrong for the grade, it was because the altitude was making me light headed and I was afraid of falling off the bike. Isn't the smartest thing is to get your gear to the top then continue riding? Do I or should I feel ashamed? Hell no! Yea, call me a wimp.

Before we rode across the USA my bike guru had me change out my Dura-Ace rear derailleur for an XT and a cassette with greater range. Wise advice. A week or two into the trip other riders were looking for a bike shop to change their cassette and derailleur. I guess I was good at recruiting other wimps who now live their live in shame.

The posers that think their bikes have to mirror those of world champion team racers are deluded and pathetic. Use whatever works for you and just keep riding. That's the whole point. Keep riding. Tune you bike to yourself and the terrain in which you ride.

Carbonfiberboy 

We run a 52-39-26 and a 12-34. We got up everything we've encountered so far, included loaded touring. Ride it, see what your speed and cadence are on your worst hills, then use a gear and cadence calculator to figure out what might work better, if what you have isn't optimum:
https://www.machars.net/bikecalc.htm
or
https://www.gear-calculator.com/#

nfmisso

We're running 54/44/26 with a 9 speed 11-34 on our T50. It had 54/44/28 and a 7 speed 12-30 when we got it. The 7 speed was a Suntour cassette - so new hub, and the original rims cracked, so all new wheels The 54 ring is original, the 44 was damaged on vacation, the 28 is in my box of parts.

As others have noted, try what you have, and decide what you need to change to suit your team.

gsms

Gearing set up is just like any other tool. Get the right hammer for the job that works for you. Never have seen a tool or a chain ring combo or a cassette labeled "wimpy" but I have seen a lot of people using the wrong tool for the job and getting hurt in the process (including myself). Around here the hills turn into pretty radical mountains and then there's the altitude. A 52/39/24 & 11-32 work most of the time but it's not that hard to reach into the tool box for another set up. A couple of hours work make for a great days ride.

Enjoy, Scott

waynesulak

I agree with the multiple posts above that say use what works for you. I would like to add that this goes for chinrings in addition to cassettes. Shimano is so fixated on indexed front shifting that it tries to dictate the rings and ring combinations available to use. Our tandem came with a 54/42/30 FSA rings and a 11/34 cassette with Ultegra brifteres and FD. Shifted ok but had soft pedal to get it into the granny.

We found that we didn't use the 54/11. Surprise I wonder how many first time tandem buyers buying a Comotion can push that gear at normal cadences.

Now years later we have found the gears that work for us and normally use every available gear on the cassette in the big and middle rings granny is there to be used on longer hillier rides.

PeregrineA1 

OK, first ride report https://www.strava.com/activities/90291159 . 54 is going away and a new freewheel is being ordered. Will try a 52 and 12/30ish 1st. Big fun in any event and yet another great way to spend time on a bike. Front is friction and I think the Deore LX RD will handle the combo.

Thanks for the comments. Oh, and "wimpy" was tongue in cheek-doesn't always translate well on a keyboard.