escii_35

Hmmm freewheel. My Phil Wood FW hub was proof but the others a bit more temperamental. You are lucky a shimano 14-28 is an easy side grade. I averaged two rain infested commuting winter's per freewheel. Never had an issue touring at 260lbs loaded with food and water.

+1 for repacking the rear bearings. The Craigslist list 1993 c-dale garage queen I own required the freewheel removal destruction method.

djb

I just replaced an old rusty freewheel with a 13-28 7 speed, 15 bucks I think, sunrace probably, so options are there.
what is your triple? Did you neglect to write down the midring?

I have an old Blackburn front rack, does nashbar still sell the copy or did they go under?
my old tourer with 24 granny and 13-30 7 speed cassette is about 21 gear inches, so not bad, yours is probably 23,24.

main thing will be to see how bike is with a load.

MarcusT

If you have limited touring experience with this bike, I say get the gear. Good racks and panniers can be moved to another bike, if you see the need to change bikes. Even if this bike is not ideal, it should give you an idea of what it's short comings are and when you start looking for a new bike, you'll have a better thoughts of what to look for.
I started touring on a converted MTB and thought it was fine to start out, and it was. However, I started to notice things on long rides that made me realize it was not a pure touring bike.
After getting my LHT and putting a few thousand kms on it, I tried to ride the MTB again and found it more uncomfortable than I remember.

saddlesores

should be able to find a lovely 14:34 shimano megarange 7spd freewheel.
a nice replacement if you'll be adding significant weight to your bike.
would need to check derailleur capacity of course.

Tourist in MSN

The 24T chainring is good for low gear, the 26 big sprocket is a bit small. Not sure how big you can go with your existing derailleur. For 3 to 5 day trips, if they are not too hilly you could get by with what you have for the first few trips, then you can think about upgrading later.

djb

that's exactlywhat I took off.

djb

By the way, 24 granny with a 26t is 25 gear inches

With a 28 it's 23 gear inches

23 might be ok if you load lightly, are strong, and willing to walk sometimes

it'll come down to how much load, and your knees. Try it out and see only answer

escii_35

Lol 14-34
The only freewheel I ever chucked in the garbage before wearing it out. The gear jumps made no sense with my triple.

Steve0000

I say go for the LHT disk version. Brakes are excellent and wide tyres can be fitted with fenders if you want to go off pavement. I have fitted a 36T on the rear to give good climbing gears. The rest of the equipment can be upgraded piecemeal as you can afford it.

djb

I tried looking at the cogs and the first six are reasonable, I think 14,16,18,20,22,24 and then the giraffe jump to 34
I actually considered adjusting the high screw to avoid its use, but in the end figured a new chain was worth a new 13-28 At 15 bucks, worth it as the bike is heavy and ugly but now mechanically all sound, so a solid commuter to be left outside and hopefully not stolen.

Miele Man

I saw one of those at a bike shop just this past Friday. The thing wasn't too bad as far as gear jumps went until you got to the last one which was a jump of 10 teeth from the 24 cog to the 34 cog. WOW!

Is there another 7-speed megarange freewheel with closer jumps?

Cheers

djb

seems to me I've only ever seen this one, but ask senor google

Miele Man

Was just curious. Google gives a lot of returns to stuff that is out of production.

Cheers

djb

I've only replaced freewheels on low end bikes I've fixed up, so the 6 and 7 speed ones made by sunrace have been fine in the 13-28 range, so haven't really looked further.

saddlesores

there's a reason for that big jump.
designed for loaded touring, not necessary for commuting.

the 14-24 cogs are for regular, everyday riding. reasonable terrain.
the big 34 is for climbing that big 'ol mountain. unreasonable terrain.

you can't reason with a mountain.

@Mieleman might have been a 30 or 32, but i've only ever had the 34 version. MEGA-range, get it?
used that on the NZ/OZ tour. 18 months on a 4-bagger with trailer, max weight with water 175 pounds.
new zealand got some honking big hills, man!

cyccommute 

I don't agree. There is thinking behind the 10 tooth jump but there isn't any reasoning. Shimano has always been kind of bad at actual gearing. They don't really put much thought into how the gears are actually going to be used. Their thinking seems to be that people want lots of close gears at the high end and the jumps at the low end can be much larger. The MegaRange freewheel just takes this to its illogically conclusion. sloar's shift patter with the MegaRange would look like this. That jump is just jarring. But Shimano does that across many of its freewheels and cassettes. The concentration on the high end is a racer thing. But most people aren't racers. The MegaRange just encourages mashing and struggling up hills until you give up and drop to the super low gear. That's not good.

What's odd is that Shimano doesn't use that same MegaRange on their cassettes. Comparing a 7 speed 11-34 cassette to the MegaRange freewheel, the cassette gives a more progressive shift pattern which has holes but it's also easier to ride since hills tend to be more progressive than abrupt. Considering that the freehub wheel is a better design, it would be worth swapping over to a 7 speed cassette on a new wheel rather than suffer the inevitable bent or broken freewheel hub axle.

djb

I've only seem these megarange things on low end bikes
and yes, going to a cassette rear wheel would be good, but heck, it might be a 27in wheel, and he's already mulling about wanting to do a big tour, maybe a new bike, this is an old school sport tourer, which to us who know from experience means a flexyframe loaded up..... and it might have heelstrike issues, and weak brakes....

at a certain point you gotta balance negatives to positives
plus then there's budget, not us who know that.

but yes, all good points on freewheels.
heck, I don't even know if I could replace my 13-30 seven speed cassette if I wanted.

sloar 

The bike has 700c wheels, I’m pretty happy with the bike the way it is. So if it can’t be a proper touring bike I’m not going to sink any more money into it. Ride it for what it is and search for a tourer. Thanks everyone.

GamblerGORD53

This bike is as good as many as is. But doing the same thing over would be ridiculous.
NEW expedition bike = Rohloff14. Defailleurs >> in Garbage.

saddlesores

thinking and reasoning are essentially the same thing, but let's just go with reasoning. you can't really say there NO reasoning behind their choice, as some design aspects must have been taken into consideration. you could say though, there wasn't any (or not enough) GOOD reasoning.

hard to complain too much at the time. i needed mountain gearing, that freewheel was available, and could be purchased at a moment's notice in auckland. the 14-24 cogs in combination with the three chainrings i selected were fine for most of my riding. the 34 got me up most of the hills. not the smoothest transition, but so what? drop to the 34 and stop pedaling until lost enough speed, then resume. good enough.