Originally Posted by
SpacyJa
Thanks!
Tire size will be 2". With 38T I would have a highest gear of 89 inches.
Having 40T ring would be good, but do I really need that 30t ring in the middle? Wouldn't it be better to go a bit smaller ring (38T) and get rid of the third ring? Having 38-24 with 11-36 would give me lowest gear of 17.5. With 11-42 it would go below 15.
I would probably go with something like 44-34-22 or similar, but can't find anything. 40-30-22 seems odd to me, like 30 is too low and 40 is too high, but probably I'm just overthinking.
Everyone has their own personal preferences, but I strongly prefer a triple for touring. I have one bike with a double, that is my road bike and it has pretty narrow gearing. I have triples on two derailleur touring bikes, a rando bike, and an errand bike (that cost $5 USD). If I used my road bike on any serious hilly routes, I would convert it to a triple.
Regarding the chainrings on triples, I am not sure what the most common ones are these days, so I will not make any specific recommendations.
On my expedition bike I have a low gear of 16.2 gear inches, that gives me a speed of 3.5 mph with a cadance of 72. I find that I need 3.5 mph to maintain vertical and directional stability, any slower and I am constantly over-correcting my steering. With that low a gear, I put a lot of torque on the rear wheel and frequently loose traction and spin out on gravel. Some people like lower gears than that, but a cadence of 72 for a long uphill works well for me, that is the lowest cadence that I have a smooth non-jerky pedal stroke..