Originally Posted by
Litespud
The problem is that switching to a 50 isn’t going to help his climbing - he needs to extend his low gearing, and that means either a smaller small ring (not possible with his current 135 BCD crank) or bigger rear sprockets. A 13/29 cassette is the quickest option to extend the low end. Campagnolo 10sp standard-cage cassettes have a chain-wrap capacity of 27 teeth, so he could use a 13/29 10sp cassette with a standard RD if he switched to a 50t big ring.
Yeah I'm really focused on climbing/loaded gearing. It's aspirational, but still, I'm using the lower half of my current gear range almost all the time.
Originally Posted by
nesteel
Be aware that a triple crankset will require a different front derailleur and possible a different rear derailleur with a mid length or long cage, so figure that into the budget.
I came back to ask, and assumed that my current 2x FD wouldn't have enough throw to take the wider chainring set. Thank you for confirming.
Originally Posted by
nesteel
Campagnolo also made several flavors of square taper compact doubles, which would get you a 34 small ring, and help alot. They can be run with a standard double front derailleur.
The compacts pop up on Ebay occasionally, be prepared to jump on one if you find it.
That sounds pretty great. I started out hoping I could get a bit lower but maybe a 50/34 with the 13-29 cassette, if doable, would smooth out the range I'm looking for without costing an arm and a leg.