best all around gearing for LHT
 

I'm looking at the LHT and want to know if anyone out there has changed the stock chainrings for anything different. I see the complete bike is equipped with a 48-36-26 in front. How will that combo work for all around riding with the back cassette which is 11-13-15-17-20-26-30-34 ? I know this would work fine for my 7 mile commute which is flat but living in the PNW its not far to hills if you are going to do any kind of longer rides. I'm pretty clueless about different gearing so excuse me if this is a really basic thing I should know.

It is a very good set up.
Good for cross country riding and hills.
I did a tour where 6 riders had that bike with that gearing.

While you ride pay attention to the gears you use. If you find that you don't use your highest or your lowest gear combinations then there is a slight reason to change things up to improve efficiency in the middle of the cluster. I say slight becasue you might not notice a subtle change in the "tightness" of your cassette.

Sometimes (actually often) tourers find that they don't use their highest gears (smallest COGS). Harris Cyclery sells tighter 9 sp cassettes that start with 13 or 14 rather than 11. If you find that you actually need a lower gear than offered by 26x34, you can perhaps use a 24 or even 22 granny gear instead of the 26. Perhaps some LHT owners who have tried this can comment.

http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/k7.html#9

"Best gearing" really means "best gearing for you"

I agree that there's no one right answer, and everything is a compromise, so the right answer for you isn't even the right answer all the time.

48/36/26 mated with 11-34 would be perfect for me. Anything lower than 26x34 and I'd probably fall over. But some people who are real spinners might like a 22x34 better. And sure, sometimes I'll spin out on good downhills in 48x11, but then I'll just enjoy the ride.

You not only compromise on highest and lowest gear, but also on shifting smoothness and the ability make small changes.

Everything Cyclesafe said is true especially the last sentence: it is a matter of personal preferences and needs. I will differ form him tough on the matter that the 'tightening' of the gear ratios can be considerable. To give you a radical example, the gearing on my own LHT with 26" wheels is:
front: 44-34-22;
rear: 14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25

This is as extreme tightening of the gear ratios as you'll get but it does wonders for me on a tour: it keeps my legs fresh and my speed optimal at the same time, all the time. In other words it lets me go as fast as I can in any condition of terrain, incline, wind or tiredness while being able to keep the cadence I feel the most comfortable using at that time. It also let me access 19 different gear ratios that I can actually use, none too low and none higher than what I can actually roll. All of those ratios are in sequence, a real luxury of simplicity: 5 on the 22 chainring, followed by 9 on the 34 and then 5 on the 44.
I had to sacrifice an extreme granny: mine is 22 gearinches compared to 19 on the setup you described. I never uses such a low gear in any touring circumstance but, then again, even in a solitary fully autonomous tour I never, ever, carry more than 50-60 lbs of 'necessities'. I can't pedal faster than 39 km/h either (at a 100 RPM cadence) but this is fast enough for me on any tour. Down the steepest downhills I just surrender, let gravity take over and rest.

I built a spreadsheet to estimate the practical consequences of different gearings. It gives the gearinches developments, speeds and speed differences between gears for cadences from 70 to 100 RPM by increments of 5. It shows that, at a cadence of 90 for example, the jump between gears is of 1,0 km/h for the grannies on average, 1,4 km/h for the middle chainring, 1,9 km/h for the biggest chainring. That's as much comfort one can get with gears: into a headwind and/or ascending false flats, I stay on the middle chainring; downwind and/or in descending false flats, I use the 44 chainring; uphill I drop to the 22 chainring when necessary.

I hope that this long diatribe wasn't too confusing and that it helped you in some ways.

:)

JeanM

I like your setup very much. You're right. If you can give up a bit on the low end, you can indeed improve your efficiency significantly. OTOH, for other people the low end is where they need help, so they will need to keep the "dinner plates". BTW, if a 22 chainring works on an LHT frame you've helped the OP.

OP - Harris Cyclery offers a 13-30 "Century Special" that with a 22 tooth granny will give you a slightly lower low end than you have now and improve the mid range efficiency as described by JeanM.

My 700c tourer has 44/32/22 with 11-34 cassette. That gives me a 17 gear inch low. I used it once while riding the Southern Tier but I was glad I had it. My 26" wheeled tourer has 48/36/24 and it is the same gear inch low as the 700c. I live in the PNW and use the low gears a fair amount. But it depends where you live and where you are going, along with fitness. I would rather have the lower gearing than higher gearing any time.

You are right in pointing this out Steve: extreme grannies can't always be sacrificed. I must confess that my choice was also motivated by the fact that I commute every day using my LHT and that there are lots of stop signs and red lights on the way. Compressed gear ratios allow for faster accelerations also.
Other side effects that are OT to the OP question but maybe still worth of note:
I use more of my sprockets and chainrings on a regular basis than most other setups allow and so they wear off somewhat more evenly/last longer;
this setup allows for the use of a short cage rear derailleur which shifts faster, smoother and with more precision.

Thanks. If I get one I'll probably leave it as is.

My LHT has 26'' wheels. I changed the smallest chainring to 24 from 26, giving a 48/36/24 up front and 11-34 in back. There are couple duplicate gear ratios in the mix, but I'm delighted with the 18 gear inch low end.

I would have gone with a 22t granny gear, but wsn't sure how well it would shift with 48/36/22

My understanding is that the smallest sprocket you'll fit onto a 5x74mm PCD crank is a 24 tooth (see, for example, here). The 22 tooth sprocket would require a crank with, for example, a 58mm pitch circle.

My LHT came with a Sugino triple. It uses a 5 bolt 74mm PCD for the inner (smallest) sprocket, and the middle and large sprockets attach to a 110mm PCD. That means I could change the 26 tooth inner for a 24 but not a 22.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. :-)

Cheers, A.

This is touring. There is no "best all round". There is only "as low as you can go" and "not low enough". TA sells a 24 ring for 74 BCD. You can't get lower than 24 without a mountain crankset.

the stock setup gives you a high gear you'll never need, a second high gear that will make no difference compared to coasting and two super low gears that I hope you'll never need. Admittedly I'm using my LHT primarily for around town riding and shopping with the lowest gears adequate for the kind of loads I would ever carry in a tour. I wanted a 172.5 crank so I went ahead and went to a compact double with 34/46 chainrings with a 1:1 low gear as my lowest. That said I rode it for 1/2 year with the stock triple and 13-27 cassette and loved it.
I'd be surprised if you really felt the need to change anything from stock if it's your first experience for long distance touring and wide range triple. 9spd cassettes give such a huge range of gears. If you had $120 to blow the 13-30 custom cassette from Harris Cyclery looks like a good idea. But I doubt that would have a practical benefit compared to using that money for other things like a rack or bags.

26" LHT here with 22/32/44 up front and 11-34 in back. Definitely glad to have the granny. Riding down the Pacific Coast I remember at least one instance where I maxed out on the low end. It's primarily rider preference. I could jam with the 44/11 or maybe even higher, but on a fully loaded bike, I'm not sure I'd enjoy it much. On the downhills, I let gravity help me out a bit more.

If you are a reasonably strong rider with good lungs, the stock gearing should be fine, even with a 50 pound load and a 7% grade. Long, steeper grades is where it begins to get a bit iffy, but they are pretty infrequent as long as you stick to US and state highways.

There's a dude over at bikepacking.net who has a 20x36 granny gear. :thumb:

I don't ever remember wishing I had a higher gear, but until I went to a 44/32/22,11-34 there were many times slogging up a hill I wished for "one more shift"!

Another fan of 44/32/22,11-34 for touring.

Speedo