Originally Posted by
JehD
I ended up getting it and its the 11-34. It worked perfectly as there is enough tension in the
derailleur to take up the extra slack. If you watch the freewheel it has a little more wobble vs the Shimano but it doesn't effect the shifting at all.
I've ridden it a bit and its quiet and it shifts fine through the entire range without issue.11-34 is quite the spread especially over 7 speeds. I had a Trek DS4 with a 9 speed rear and a triple. Most of the riding I did was in the center ring and having 9 gears was pretty nice. Probably not worth the expense to spec out a 9 speed on a cruiser. In a perfect world with 7 speeds 11 is almost too high so if I could build a freewheel I would prefer
36-32-28-24-20-16-12. It would givee a little lower and a little higher with a more even spread.
You can pickup a new rear wheel for around $100 that will take a cassette instead of a freewheel. This would allow you to build that perfect gear combination.
But you’d have to find the right cassettes to disassemble to put back together the way you want .
I wish I could find a reasonable 650b rear wheel that takes cassettes. I’d swap out the one on my Specialized Roll .