Thinking of making a radical drivetrain change
This is a road-bike question, but I'm posting it in the Cyclocross/Gravelbiking forum because it involves cross/gravel gearing.
For close to 20 years, I've run old-fashioned road triples on both my road bikes (one Waterford, one Gunnar) On both, I run Ultegra 52/42/26 setups with 13-36 cassettes. At age 64, after back surgery and two bouts with cancer, I can no longer push big gears. I'm thinking of changing the gears on one of the bikes to more of a cyclocross/gravel setup. I'm looking at replacing the current triple crankset with a White Industries VBC (variable bolt circle) double crankset that combines a 44T big ring with at 24T small ring. I'd couple that with 11-speed SRAM shifters / derailleurs and an 11-42T cassette.
Does anyone see any potential pitfalls in such a setup? It won't be cheap ($1k or thereabouts), but I think it will give me the low gearing I need to climb the short-but-steep hills I ride here in West Virginia. Your thoughts? Thanks!