New Granny chainring
 

Hi, I currently have a Deore 10 sp triple 48/36/26 with a Deore FD-M611 front derailleur.
I’m thinking of replacing the 26 ring with a 22 as I’m planning a Japan trip.

Should this work? A chainring is not expensive but good to hear from you guys before ordering. Thanks!
In case it’s relevant, I’ve got a 11-34 cassette
The gear range looks fine:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c9b7f0de4b.png

I am not familiar with your crankset, so I do not know if it will fit. If you are trying to figure out what the BCD is, this may help.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cribsheet-bcd.html

One possible downside if your rear derailleur does not take up all the excess chain slack is that you can't use one or two of the smallest sprockets when using the granny gear, but those are badly cross chained gears so you should not use them anyway.

On one of my bikes when I put on a smaller granny gear, the chain would rub on the middle chainring in some gears. I needed to buy some thin spacers to put under the granny gear sprocket to push it a bit further to the inside.

You might find that you want a chain catcher if you drop your chain frequently.

Awesome, thanks TinMSN. It's a Deore 10sp M6010 crankset, so the 22 from the M6000 will fit. It is rather as you say, problems with chain slack, shifting etc that I was thinking about.
Probably best to just buy one and see if it works. If not I'm sure I'll have a use for it somewhere down the road :)

I did some super quick searching and in some places I saw that 24 is the smallest possible, but I could have sworn that Ive read someone here who has put a 22 on a deore 48/36/26--so now I'm not sure.....

don't you find the 48 way too big for real life uses?

Have you ever considered putting on a mtb triple 44/32/22 or thereabouts?

all of this conjecture aside, if you can put a 22 on, having a low gear of a bit under 18 gear inches is very useful I find, I never regret having a super low gear like that, even when not heavily loaded but going on some super steep offroad trails when bikepacking.

the one thing / downside with a 22 and keeping your present 36 is that the 14t jump between chainrings will mean a lot of upshifts or downshifts going from mid to small or reverse.
Ive ridden a lot on a bike with 16t jump (50/40/24) and another bike with 13t jump (50/39/26) -- in this last one I changed the 26 from a 30.
Ultimately, you just want to have lower climbing gears, so doing two upshifts or downshifts with a 14t diff between mid and small chainring isn't the end of the world, but just be aware of having to do that.

I realize the costs of chainrings can be all over the place , with higher quality ones super expensive, but have you considered looking at getting smaller chainrings for the 48 and 36 also? -- I suspect the price is way too much, and why I wondered if a mtb triple would interest you, with smaller rings overall?
Probably not easy to find those nowadays anyway, so availability could be a factor, which brings you back to your change the 26 to a 22 idea--a lot cheaper to do--but again, just be aware of the bigger jump between mid and small might bug you , or it might not.

oh--when I changed my 50/39/30 to a 26 granny, I had to "shim" the 26 away from the crankset using washers I had, as the profile of the 26 was flat, but the original 30t had a shape that put the teeth farther from the crankset, and I lucked out using pretty readily available washers I had in a washer kit we had in the house with diff sized washers. Official crankset spacers are available, but I recall being shown a shimano kit or something at the bike store, and it was fairly expensive, so I tried with regular washers and they worked fine.
To clarify, before I put the washers, the new smaller chainring ended up being too close to the mid ring, and the chain would rub against the mid ring in certain gears, the washers pushed it out just enough (maybe a mm?) and it solved the problem.
Worked out for me, I kinda just improvised and was lucky.

let us know what options you can reasonably do without it costing too much.
cheers

just be aware that chain length always has to respect the big/big setup, if you don't and one day for some reason you or someone borrowing your bike shifts into big big, you can really eff things up, with big damage consequences to rear derailleur, rear wheel.

Always follow the standard procedures for assessing proper chain length, Parks tools has a great video on this, explains the why and how to have the right chain length for your specific setup.

It shouldn’t be an issue. The 36 to 22 jump is 14 teeth which is the same as my 34 to 20. I have no issues with that jump at all.

A Deore crank is a mountain bike crank and has a 104/64 BCD. Without modification, the smallest inner ring is a 22. With a little bit of surgery, it is even possible to run a 20 tooth inner. A 22 tooth chainring is easy.

I’ve used a crank with the same 14 tooth jump extensively on numerous bikes without issues.

thanks cycco for confirming the 22t going on.
and ya, the 14t ish jump isn't a problem for me either, you just have to anticipate it and depending on your cadence when you shift, snick up or down two gears to have a more reasonable cadence change after the front shift.

Djb is right, you never want to have a chain too short for a big and big combination. If your chain is too long, it is best to lose the small and small combination, as no damage occurs. Instead it just sounds funny when the chain rubs on itself where the chain is wrapped around the upper jockey wheel.

I have an 18T jump between the 24T granny and my middle 42T ring on two bikes. It basically means that when I make that shift, it is because I needed to make that shift. Then I am happy to do it.

A 14T jump is not a big deal. My rando bike with a 52/42/30 road triple crank has a 12T jump, not much different than a 14T.

The 24T is plenty low IMO. The last thing you want is 3 gears you don't use.
=== My Rohloff14 had 46/16T >> 21.8 to 114.6 GI. Yah I walked a bunch of times, no big deal still going 3.2 mph.
While the top end I also used just as much as the low. Comes very handy doing dips getting and keeping momentum.
Couple years ago I was using 44/ 16T unloaded around home doing century day miles. Didn't take much slope or tailwind to be in 13th gear already.

I don’t worry about big big because thats x chain. Never happens because I don’t loan out my bikes.
Been doing it my way since forever.

I did the same thing and there was a downside.. When shifting to the 22t, the chain will sometimes slip off. Very frustrating when you're on a steep uphill. I mounted a chain guide on the seat tube to ensure is does not slip off.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4512c19b0c.jpg

That may work for you, but it rarely would work for others.

It depends in part on what shifters you are using.
.

• On my bikes with bar end shifters, when I put my hand on the lever, I immediately know which chainring I am on or which part of the cassette I am on by feel of the lever position. Thus with bar end shifters, I virtually never cross chain because it does not take very many brain cells to avoid cross chaining.
• My road bike with brifters front and rear, or my errand bike with flat bars and ratchet shifters, I am frequently cross chaining because I do not get that feedback about where I am on the cassette or which chain ring I am on. If I had too little chain for a big and big cross chain, I am sure I would make that mistake.
• My rando bike, brifter for rear, downtube friction for front, I occasionally cross chain but less often than the road bike.

good point.
I have found that chain drops do not usually happen with well adjusted limit screws and a bit of finesse shifting (ive found that the chance of a chain drop is higher if I shift into small chain ring very quickly when the chain is on a smaller cog at the back--I always assumed because of less chain tension)
BUT these type of chain catcher things really do work well.
I have this exact model on one of my bikes, and it and the other types on the market generally work really well and do their job without you even knowing.

dogtooth I think this one is called?
seems to me chain catchers are about 10-15 bucks.
Worth getting in my opinion.

These days the only time I’m in the big ring is if Speeds are +23mph. A quick glance if you don’t know what ring your using.

X chains a rookie mistake.

Yes, it is not the adjustment. As a matter of fact, when I posed the same question years ago on this forum a member warned me about the chain drop if the difference in teeth is big. And 36t to 22t is too big for stable shifting

That is infuriating! Why is it that only the lowest end components have gear indicators. It'd be so much nicer to have gear indicators on say, my GRX levers. I wouldn't have to look down to see whether I'm on the big or small chainring.

hi again imi, I forget, what sort of shifters do you have on your bike?
Front friction shifters help a bit with bigger front chainring differences because its really easy to finesse a front shift, easy to do if one has any sort of mechanical sympathy and understanding or visualization of a front chainring shift.
STI type shifters just do an automatic "klunk" shift and you can't control the speed at which the shifter moves the front derailleur--but my bike with a road triple that I changed the granny to a 50/39/26 has sti shifters, and with proper limit screw adjustment plus that chain catcher thingee, shifting to the 26t has been 99% accurate.
Of course, the specific fd I have plays a part, and the chain catcher is very likely a factor in helping keep the chain in place.

also, think of all the road bikes that have 50/34 cranksets, so 16t, 14t, whatever tooth differences can easily be managed in real life riding, it just really helps if your fd is adjusted properly limit screw wise and you learn what shifting style can help things, or I guess I should say, to avoid the pretty small number of situations that can make the shift harder (shifting up front while shifting at the back or whatever)

Thanks everyone for your input! 👍
I’ve ordered a 22T ring and will experiment.
Is there a standard ”best” chain- catcher like the one MarcusT posted a picture of above in post 13?

djb: I’ve got Shimano 10-speed bar-end shifters, so friction on the front. I pride myself in being a sensitive rather than slam-it shifter, haha, so no worries there :)

Oh, in case anyone is interested, it was impossible to find Deore M6000 22T rings in europe. 40 & 30 rings are available but seem to be in the process of becoming discontinued. Even SJS cycles in the UK who usually have old and odd stuff are out of them.
I ended up ordering a SLX/Deore FC-M672 ring on eBay which is meant to be compatible.

good stuff.
If you don't have the specific chainring bolt "hold the back part in place when turning the hex key on the front" tool, usually a big flat head screwdriver can work, albeit kinda finicky and may involve swearing.
Make sure you tighten them well when putting on the 22t.
and take a look at the profile of the 26t compared to the 22t that you will get, just to know or visualize if you need to use any spacers/washers to offset it from the crank.
BUT before tightening the heck out of the chainring bolts, make sure you can shift well in all the gears without any rubbing going on with the mid ring--thats what I remember, doing all that work and futzing with a screwdriver, then realizing I had to take the damn thing off again because of the rubbing and figure out the washers trick.

Haha yes, after too many years swearing too much, I bought the special bolt holder tool. I always wear mechanics gloves when tightening bolts as the tool can slip too, and result in pain and swearing once again especially when tightening the bolts with the crank still installed :mad:

I use one like that. But it can be confusing to see it with my cadence sensor, pump, etc., in the photo. That type needs a seat tube of the right diameter. Or if you tube is too large, an appropriate spacer.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e567291f56.jpg

Easier to see it on my rando bike, below:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...2f8f1d705a.jpg

I think every single one of my non-stock chainrings was made by an after market company. But with the newer four bolt patterns, you might have less choice. I think all of the small granny gear chainrings I have bought were for a five arm (not four) 74mm BCD crank, there were several companies that made them.

Bike Discount, Bike 24, Bike Components, Spa Cycles, It is called the Deda Dog Fang Chain Fall Protector. Decathlon even has a version
Before I found the Deda, I used a plumbing fixture and hacked it
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...097ac0ac18.jpg