Tourist in MSN

I concur. Pick the gearing you want for all situations and use that 100 percent of the time.

I spend 90 percent of the time in the 60 to 90 gear inch range unladen, 90 percent of the time in the 50 to 80 gear inch range when loaded with camping gear. Am running an 11/32 rear eight speed cassette and a 52/42/24 front that gives me a huge range of gearing.

Am considering changing the front 52t to 46t to achieve half step gearing, but that is another story.

djb

didnt say before, but you've lost me on this--I understand it that you will only "stand and pedal" if the chain is perfectly straight? Is my take on your comment correct?

ollyisk

I really think you're overthinking this.

staehpj1

+1

VT_Speed_TR

I don't know, we have lots of hills here in Vermont and I never have all these issues. I guess if you are into "attacking" the hill, this all matters to the likes of you and Lance. For me I just downshift to the front inner and progress thru the last 3-4 cogs on the cassette, just spinning away. Seems like you are going to be spending lots of time shifting fronts & rear just to use each gear ratio in progression. The likelihood of a miss shift or lost momentum must be great with this kind of method.

bud16415

My tour bike is 52-42-24 front and 12-14-16-18-21-24-28-32-36 back

To me I have tour gears and recreational gearing all in one and ride it both ways. I didn’t like a center ring much smaller than 38 because it started making my favorite gears spread out over the two chain rings requiring a front shift. With a 9 speed I don’t mind doing sequential shifts across the whole cassette and if I need an in between gear I can do a half step off the big ring for 5 different half steps. A range of 6 granny gears to use is also nice on the rolling climbs around here.

With my set up for me I get a range of gear inches on the granny of 18 to 36 on the center 31 to 94 and the big ring 58 to 116. That more than covers it all to my liking. 90% of my riding is on the center ring.

MassiveD

My first touring bike was a Peugeot I bought around 72 with paper route money. It had ten speeds. Now most touring bikes are 24 or 27. I just ride the inner two loaded, for the most part, and the outer 2 unloaded.

It kinda falls into the category of question where if you have super picky beyond the norm features in mind, why ask us. You presumably know the answer already.

Rowan

Here's a thought: Why don't people pony up the cash and buy the things they want to experiment with. Put their theories into practice. Go mess around with chainrings, you can get them for good prices on the internet. Go get a couple of cheap Tiagra cassettes (or even better, the individual cogs) and experiment.

That's how the people who offer meaningful advice are able to offer that advice...

Pain

Keep in mind that you don't have to finish off the cassette with a 12T or 11T. There are 13T, 14T, and 15T final position cogs for "junior" gearing so you can totally customize the gearing for touring to sport to racing without touching the chainrings. I have 14-34, 13-32, and 12-27 cassettes for my touring bike depending on how much weight I plan to carry. I have the extra wheels to keep the cassettes mounted for a quick change, but it is not that big a deal to change the cassette out either if you only have one wheelset.

Cheers4Gears

Ok, point taken. Thanks. But I think there might be a misunderstanding. Please let me clarify: I don't need to know which gear range will work (though I don't mind if anyone offers such advice) since I already know the answer to that question. It's set in stone. Anyone who wants specifics can simply go to my initial posting and plug the numbers into a gear inch calculator. That will produce the gear range I want. I won't compromise on it. Experience tells me not to.

I just need to know which combination of technologies will get me there. So far I've gotten some great suggestions and ideas. Lots to think about, and I might be nearing a solution. Stay tuned

My first bike was a Ross 10-speed. I still have it. I got it during the time when drop bars became the fad. The corporate bike-opoly decided that every person, young and old, should look like a Tour de France rider. Then, people discovered how uncomfortable drop bars are, so they turned them upside down to get a more reasonable sitting posture. Remember those days?

In my opinion, people in the 70s were forced to apply a "duct tape" solution to something that should've been designed correctly in the first place. Shouldn't we be able to avoid such "solutions" these days, if we want to?

Yes, essentially I'm looking for reasonably straight chainlines. Simply stated: I want to use only the first half of the cassette, cogs 1-thru-5, when in the inner chainring. Those first 5-cogs should be my designated climbing gears. All of them should be usable gears, starting with ~26", then 28.5", 31.5"...

A lower range of gears would be wasted and cause me to veer into forbidden territory (i.e., cross chain into cogs 6 thru 9). I don't mind cross chaining every now and then, for short periods, but it shouldn't be a matter of course.

Sure, over the years I've met people on rides who thought it's OK to cross chain all the time. They had a devil may care attitude and flaunted it whenever opportunities arose. But what would the world look like if everyone suddenly started doing it? Chaos, no doubt.

Ha, guess I forgot about Texas Hill Country. I've only been to Texas once, as a kid, in the early 1970s, forced to endure sitting in the back seat of an un-airconditioned rental car for days at a time. The only thing I remember about TX is the searing daytime HEAT! It was probably road trips like that that cause my semi-claustrophobic feeling when riding in automobiles as an adult. (Not the fault of Texas, but of the circumstances of my visit.) I've been a bike commuter for the past 10-years.

Yes, a 12-25 cassette with a standard 26/36/48 crankset would give me perfect gearing. Thanks.

I started a thread in the "Bicycle Mechanics" section of the forum. It's about using mountain derailleurs with road cassettes.


On my recumbent I have an Ultegra that was 30/42/52 (stock gearing for early 2000s when I bought it) before I changed it to 26/39/53. The Ultegra front derailleur shifts fine in both cases, but I don't know how it would handle my proposed 32T inner chainring. Such things are definitely worth thinking about in advance. Thanks for mentioning it.

And thanks for the graph! I mapped the 11-23 cassette with a 24/36/48 crankset. It's yet another perfect spread. Starts with a 26" and has about 17 usable gears overall. Not bad if my long cage derailleur can handle it. (See my other thread.)


Perhaps, but unlike Lance, I enhance my training regiment with a specially formulated beer-n-burgers diet. I figure, more weight on the pedals will make me go faster Don't tell Lance about my strategy.

That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. It's why I started this thread. In my next post I'll describe my solution...

Cheers4Gears

Ok, here's my solution:

Plan A
Originally, I wanted to switch chainrings back and forth according to my desired gearing. But I now realize that there's a shortage of suitable chainrings available, so that idea is off the table for now.

Plan B
Many seem to like the idea of switching between mountain and road cassette. I like it, as well, so I'll probably give it a try. It would sure simplify things!

Plan C (Wildcard!)
If switching cassettes doesn't work (e.g., due to the derailleur) then I'll go for a double crankset. More specifically, I'll convert the triple into a double by removing the granny chainring and possibly adjusting the size of the middle chainring. Of course, it'll require a new bottom bracket with shorter spindle, along with a front derailleur for doubles. The final product will be a 34/48 crankset with an 11-32 or 12-32 cassette. It'll give me the exact gear spread that I need for unloaded recreational riding.

For loaded touring I'll need to switch the bottom bracket (unless some type of spacer can be used) and reinstall the granny chainring. I'll temporarily swipe the triple derailleur off my recumbent unless I can find one used on Ebay. The chain length should be OK as is. This conversion is a bit more of a hassle than the other options, but for the few extended tours I'm doing, it might not be so bad. By process of elimination, if the cassette idea doesn't work, it seems to be my only option.

Thanks to everyone for a great discussion!

Rowan

Why wouldn't the rear derailleur work if it's a long-cage version set up for the 32 big cog, and you change to a road cassette?

ollyisk

This thread is absolutely mind-boggling.

chasm54

Are you serious? I'm beginning to doubt your sanity, frankly.

I agree.

djb

pulling our legs? If not, good luck with your quest. Time to say bye bye.

wahoonc

I don't know too many people that switch gears in a sequential order, they pick the gear they need for the job at hand and ride on. FWIW I ride in an area with varying terrain and seldom use more than 4 or 5 gears.

Aaron

Cheers4Gears

If I'm not mistaken, mountain derailleurs have different slopes of travel than road derailleurs. Apparently, they're not optimized for shallow road cassettes and might cause some touchy shifting in the low gears. But I don't know for sure. I found some mixed reports when searching the web: it seems that for some riders it works fine, but for others it doesn't.

I wish I could just buy a road derailleur to use with my 9-speed Sram X.9 twist shifters. That way, it would be a simple matter of switching between mountain and road cassette/derailleur.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, all of Sram's road components are of the 10-speed variety. So, to make such a system work, I'd need to convert everything to 10-speed. It would be an expensive conversion and it wouldn't include the nice X.9 twist shifters (since they're not yet offered for sale in the 10-speed version). Instead, I'd probably opt for 500tt barend shifters (installed on mounting brackets) -- lots of $$$ that I don't want to spend on this little project.

If frustration can lead to insanity, then I'm well on my way.

Plan C is indeed a major PIA! At best, to simply things, I could get another crankset so that I'd have, e.g., a 34/48 for unloaded recreational riding and a 24/38 for loaded touring. (Using same 11-32 cassette in each case.) But for now, all the 24/38's cost more than I want to spend, and I haven't found any that fit square taper BBs.

Striving for perfect solutions isn't easy. But someone's got to do it Thanks for the input. Cheers!