1000% OMNIGEAR BIKE Wide range cassette with a triple
 

I tend to ride my 9-spd triple 11-36T 24/38/48 bike as if it is a 1x drivetrain with 38T crank. When I can't get up a hill with the 36 cog/38 chainring, I just drop to the granny 24. When I manage to get above 35 mph or so (very rare) I will shift into my big chainring on the 11 or 13 cog. Other than than that, I always just stay in my middle ring. Honestly idk if that's what you're "supposed" to do on a triple but that's always worked fine for me for over 10,000 miles of touring and communing on this exact drivetrain. But from this perspective, a triple 3x is simply a 1x with a granny gear and a "anti-granny" gear (big chainring).

So, I want to absolutely max my gear ratio out with the hugest combinations of cogs and chainrings possible. Cassette 10-46T (maybe even 50T+?), with a triple 22/38/54. I did the math and it provides over 1000% gear range, with a super climbing gear of <0.5 gear ratio, 12 gear-inches on 26" wheels, which should let me tow my 350-lb sailboat up the steep hills of Seattle. But, the "1x" 38T middle ring should be perfectly adequate for any commuting and road riding, while the biggo chainring will let me go freeway speeds down mountains. Big long cage derailleur to take up the slack, and I should be fine as long as I stay a half-cassette away from cross-chaining when I'm in the 22 or 54 (Like I said, I only use the 1 or 2 biggest/smallest cogs when I'm in the 1st or 3rd chainring, anyway).

I use friction shifters, and the 14t jump on my current chainring setup has never been an issue for me, so I don't imagine 16t will be unreasonable to handle either.

I guess my question is: why is this kind of setup seemingly really uncommon? People hype up the 1x drivetrain so much, but as far as I can tell a 1x is just a triple with a broken front derailleur stuck in the middle gear. I get that it's more simplified and what not, but are friction shifters and front derailleurs that unreliable, or heavy, or complicated? For like 1 extra pound you can get +500% gear ratio and that much more versatility out of your bike. And, while I've had to replace or service my RD cable and rear shifter system multiple times, I've literally never had to do anything to my front shifter or derailleur, and I've ridden THE **** out of this bike (fully loaded dirt road touring in freezing rain kind of ****, 500 continuous miles of salt-water coast riding without even lubing my chain kind of ****, etc). I've had so many bike shop dorks tell me that I need two different bikes (or even three!) if I want to tow heavy loads, have a spry commuter, take light fast road rides, and and go on extended tours with 100s of lbs of crap. But... why? As far as I can tell, a cheap ass used 28-lb steel bike with sturdy rack mounts and decent tire clearance can seemingly do all of those things pretty well provided with the right gears.

New omnigear 1000% drivetrain components are in the mail, I'll update this thread when I install everything, and report back on how awesome my bike is.

idk the reasoning, but I'd support a 1x15 setup after having slightly wider chain/seat stays.

Post a pic towing the sailboat.

Have you considered.... a BIOPACE crankset?

Some bikes don't need more then a 1x, my MTB has a 38 11-46 set up and I've yet to need anything more so why have more? My cross bike is set up 46/30 with an 11/36, when I ride cross or off-road I just leave it in the 30 unless I hit a paved section or long downhill, just as I usually don't leave the 46 riding pavement. There isn't a hill around me that can't be tackled with a 38/36 but I can bail out if I need and that 46/11 is fast enough for any kind of riding or racing I might do on the bike. My road bike I used all 20 gears and haven't had the need for a triple. With modern cassettes and chainrings I think the triple is becoming redundant, a double can have very similar or the same ranges as a triple due to the limits of derailleurs. The right rear der can handle a 16t jump in the front and move through an 11-40 cassette, none I know of will handle that same cassette and a triple crank.

My triple, 24/36/46, gets ridden like three, four speeds. Between my age and Vermont's hills, the 46 is more decorative than functional.

For an all-rounder endurance road bike, yeah, I do not at all understand why they don't make them with triples. My 30-year old low-end steel Trek with granny gear tackles hills loads better than the newer $1000+ carbon fiber road bikes with 50/34 up front (or whatever it is) that my regular riding companions have...

You do that.

+1000. Bunch of poseur, wanna-be racer boys around here. Don't let's get started on those stupid jerseys with pockets and tight pants with diaper pads.:thumb:

You spend most of the time on your middle ring, and rarely use your big ring, but you need to double your gear range? Sounds ... logical.

Very good question. A better question though is why NOT have more? Idk I do occasionally find that even the granny gear on a 36T cog is too much force for my weak ankles when I'm towing stuff up hill or am fully loaded with stuff for a long trip, and I often wish I had just a bit more mechanical advantage.

If I'm not mistaken (though there's a great chance that I am) Most long cage RDs should be able to handle it just fine as long as you stay in the small-cog-big-chainring and/or big-cog-small-chainring pairings? But yeah it's true that no derailleur in existence could handle every possible gear combo on the 11-46 triple

Accepted. Expect the photo evidence ~April 2021 when I pull it out of storage.

Walking billboards they are.

Who cares about logic it's 1000%!!!!! But yeah you're right 99 times out of hundred I won't use my extreme gear ratio options. But, those rare moments when I do need them it will be really nice to have em. Such as towing a sailboat up a mountain, which for some reason I strongly feel like my bike should be able to do that

Not many people use their bike to pull a boat.

I'm going in the other direction. My bike came with an 11-34 cassette, but I never used the biggest cogs so I replaced it with an 11-28.

The fact that using half the cogs in the small ring will slack the chain (and possibly drop/jam it) due to insufficient chain wrap capacity is not a big selling point.

I am a novice at this but I imagine that towing a heavy load up a steep hill must present issues keeping the front wheel down?
How do you counteract that?

Not as bad as the fact that using half the cogs in the big ring will likely rip the rear derailleur off its mount.

I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that he would size the chain for big/big..... but re-reading his post.... maybe not.

You need a bigger boat. :D

i can tow either of my boats (kayaks) with any of my bikes. ;) But i don't have brakes on the little two wheeled hand cart - potentially problematic. I don't need a bigger boat, just a warmer Puget Sound.


People who post threads trying to make controversy out of their preferred gearing choices (electronic tracker, pedal choice, tire selection, etc) need to ride other folks terrain + bikes before claiming knowledge of Illuminational Truth.

qft

nolo contendre - quaternion algebra

i almost flunked DE 50years ago.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1f6c16d482.jpg

If a huge gear range is what you want, go for it but it's pretty easy to see why it's not something that is offered by mainstream companies. I mean really, not many people expect to haul their sailboat on the same bike that they use for high speed descents.

The 1X setups are attractive to some because they get a wider gear range than what used to be offered with triples without having to deal with the FD but if you want to combine the two, have at it. And yes, please do show us the boat tow pics.