phtomita

Today I tried outside to shift from the 24 to 34T and shifts down and up back very smoothly even when I am on the 52T front.
Surprised myself since I though it would make some noise when switching.
Then, I went ahead and swapped the small chainring from 42 to 38T .
Since I am on 6 speed SIS shifter, I am 16-18-20-22-24-34 range on the 7 speed MF-TZ31.

First two pics shows how it looks like when it is sitting on 24T - quide pulley and 34T is kind of side by side.

phtomita

Now, I need to do some general cleanup and switch the housing and cables that has some rust on it.

pastorbobnlnh 

Have you thought about or can you change your sifter setting to "friction" and use all seven sprockets?

Also be careful with the gear change up to the 34T. Once I torqued one of these and bent the 34T. This was before I serviced freewheels, so I had no idea how to replace a bad sprocket. Ended up in the scrap metal bucket.

phtomita

I can use the friction setting, but it looks like my right hand prefers indexing
I was looking around the web yesterday and now I am thinking on disassembling the cogs and remove the 20T - kind of, will have to pad something at the bottom of the stack.
The 22-24-34 are hard connected each other, so the ones I can play with are the 16, 18 and 20. 14T is the one that holds the whole thing.
It will be kind of weird 14-16-18-22-24-34-?? (last to add the right height to the stack), but I will have the lowest 14T.

If I find a really cheap 7 speed downtube SIS shifter will jump on it

ThermionicScott 

Putting a 22% jump in the middle sounds like a great way to make an awful progression worse, but it's your bike.

dddd

Believe it or not, having a big jump in the middle of the freewheel appears to have been a custom-freewheel "thing" back in the late 70's or so.

I have come across many freewheels built that way.
The theory (apparently) was that the top (smallest) cogs were for fast pacelining or for a breakaway, while the larger cogs were dedicated to climbing.
I missed the logic of what happens in -between, at least for the terrain that I am familiar with.

The biggest jump that I ever included in one of my built (road) freewheels was a 16-19t gap, so that I could span 14-26t with just five cogs.
I am actually fairly comfortable using a 17-20t gap in spirited riding here in the ever-rolling foothills, which gets me through the 13-28t range with just a common Uniglide six-speed.

Having a quick-shifting chain/freewheel/derailer setup can do wonders for making the most of a wider spread of ratios, as does having a relatively forward saddle position.
By having the saddle forward, the time and effort in getting up out of the saddle to multiply the available torque are both reduced considerably, helping to "bridge" any wide ratio gaps, especially while climbing.
There are adaptations of the upper body (arms, neck and shoulders) that facilitate riding in a more-forward position, but having to bend more sharply at the waist is definitely NOT one of them, since the rider's entire body is simply rotated forward about the bottom bracket as the saddle is moved forward.

phtomita

Yesterday while browsing around found out there is a 6 speed megarange with 14-16-18-21-24-34.
Let me see if the bike recycle shop around has a cheap one - even new is around 15 bucks anyway....