seeker333

Triple touring drivetrains are getting hard to source/build, because Shimano and Sram have discontinued MTB-capable triple cranksets (and required front derailleur) as of a year ago. They still make/sell triple road components. The only touring-suitable triple crank still stocked by USA/QBP-associated shops is the Sugino XD-600, which is not 10 or 11s compatible and has more than doubled in price over the past 3-4 years. You have to go to UK or German shops to find Shimano MTB triple cranks, and there seem to be fewer choices now (most have a 40t large ring). Buy now if a triple is in your plans (find some spare middle chainrings too).

J.Higgins 

This is precisely what I'm discovering. Its almost like the touring segment is being pushed backwards a little.

L134 

Clyde1820

Thorn makes their Short Triple crankset. Can handle chainrings as low as 22/32/44T, and it comes in various arm lengths (150mm to 175mm).

Thorn Short Triple @ SJS Cycles.

djb

thats pretty neat that they come in such short crank arm lengths, would really make a diff for shorter riders.

for touring with 40+ lbs and being in mountainy areas, I am totally sold on mtb triples, a la 44/32/22 because I find it really suits riding a bike in the 70, 80, 90lb range that sometimes happens when you have to carry a lot of stuff and or are carrying more things with two people.
The only downside , is if on flat terrain all the time and or with less weight, having a bigger mid ring would be handy, but I do really have to say that this in a touring day with a mtb triple like this, I use pretty much all the gears in a day, which to me shows that its a very useful range overall, AND you are spreading out the wear over your entire drivetrain over time, which I feel is a plus.

cyccommute 

Wrong. It's being pushed backwards a lot...almost to nonexistence. Which is weird considering that it's enjoying an upswing in popularity.

Sharpshin

Wow! It's true! I just googled around How long before indivual chainrings get hard to find, prob'ly already are .


Bike Nashbar's 22-32-44 was my go-to crankset, no longer offered, same across the board.


I'm a slow and leisurely rider by comparison to some here, but then I also like to be able to look around some instead of just focusing on the asphalt in front of me (I wear my my bird watching binocs on my chest while riding).

I'm geared down to 17 gear inches or so, need to hurry and get a 20-tooth chainring quick if they're still out there to give me a honest 15 gear inches. I did have one on my crankset and it worked fine in Texas, but as mentioned somewhere above began to skip on steep inclines in the UK, didn't have the chainring bolts machined down enough, switched it out for a 22 toother in a LBS over there.


IIRC most of my riding is in the 40-50 gear inch range, target speed while touring ~10mph.


On tour I typically linger over breakfast and a newspaper in a local eatery wherever I'm at and roll out about 9-10am. OTOH I then roll all day until dark, laying out wherever I can find a spot. I averaged 65 miles a day going 2,000 miles to NY, which seems to in the ballpark for many touring riders.

cyccommute 

While I somewhat agree, it's not impossible to get components. You just have to be more diligent about looking. Microshift makes a number of components that are still 8 and 9 speed compatible. They even make a road triple derailer that is 10 speed compatible. I've used their stuff for a couple of bikes and it works well.

I've gone a little backwards on cranks to the 94/58 mm BCD cranks. I have RaceFace Turbines from the late 90s on 3 of my bikes because they will take a 20 tooth inner easily

IMG_1444 (1) by Stuart Black, on Flickr

Untitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr

DSCN0934 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

With a 20 tooth inner and a 11-36 tooth cassette (you can find 11-36 9 speed cassettes here), I have a 14.4 gear inch low on the mountain bikes and a 15" gear on the road bike.

The Moots, by the way, is sporting an 10 speed drivetrain with 9 (and possibly 8) speed chain rings. I haven't had any problem with shifting so far.

I'm also dallying with the idea of doing surgery on a Shimano Hollowtech 2 crank to mount a 20 tooth inner ring. The 64mm BCD is just a little too large for a 20 tooth but you can grind off the some material on the bolt mounts and get a 20 tooth to work.

J.Higgins 

I like your bikes, Stu.

fietsbob

Rohloff ; 16t cog 53t chain ring, 406-47 wheel 14th, 1.47x overdrive, is a 90.8"..

a 38 t chain ring 559-47 wheel , 14th is 89.7 " they both are fine .. by me..

Calculated using this..

tcs

I recognize mine is a minority opinion, but I think that happened a long time ago. Light, robust, narrow:



Anyway, a door closes, a door opens: Rohloff, Pinion, Sturmey-Archer, Efneo, and who knows, maybe even Shimano's 12th generation Alfine 11 hub.

djb

yowzer, those 33, 35 and 36% jumps make my knees hurt--and yes, I know you are half stepping it up the ying yang to have less than 35% jumps, but still.....

cyccommute 

Thank you. The Cannondale is my touring bike. The Moots is my off-road touring/winter studded tire bike. And the Dean is my off-road commuter/ relatively nice day winter bike. I'd gavel tour on it as well.

tcs

Fun fact: we're celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs adopting 33% gear intervals.

tcs

I have no idea what this means, but clearly modern riders' inability to shift front derailleurs is contributing to the popularity of '1X' gear trains.

noglider 

I just bought an 11-speed MTB rear derailleur, 11-speed trigger shifter, and 11-40T 11-speed cassette for my tandem. I kept the triple front derailleur with friction-shifting thumb shifter. The setup works very well. I previously had 7 speeds in the rear. Now I have a higher high, a lower low, and faster and preciser shifting.

My chainrings are 28-38-48T. The wheels are 26" so the top gear still isn't high, especially for a tandem. I have a 54T chainring I plan to try on the crankset. If the shifting cooperates, I'm in luck.

djb

first of all I agree, shifting a triple front derailleur is not hard to do, using common sense and mechanical sympathy is all it takes, but for some it seems to be a huge problem.
I dont get it either.

half step gearing was around back in the 5 and 6 speed days, the mid and big rings have a small tooth diff, like yours, so you have "inbetween shifts" by going back and forth between the mid and big ring--see your chart to see what i mean.
A bit of a pain in the keester frankly, and these half step cranksets disappeared by the time I got my first touring bike with 7 speeds around 30 years ago.

Tourist in MSN

There are a few of us that still use a half step setup, I have it on two of my derailleur touring bikes, both of which have 8 speed cassettes. But, I can see where younger riders that grew up using 10 speed brifters might not appreciate half step.

tcs

Yeah, I set up a 3x5 half-step with a RH brifter and a trim-click LH brifter on an old bike with 120mm OLD. Admittedly, I don't tour on tight criterium courses, but the drivetrain was a joy to use and I really don't understand the weeping and gnashing of teeth about shifting half-step. djb passed on explaining his term, but shifting half-step certainly didn't cause any of the things suggested by the Urban Dictionary. Perhaps some riders would do better with an enviolo Nfinity N380 Automatic?

Anyway, narrow width half step is not the direction the market has gone, and we're getting touring bikes now with 1x12s, tiny, expensive chains, 148mm OLD axles, lots of dish and wide tread.

djb

howdy tcs, oh you mean the "up the ying yang" comment...just a funny term meaning "a lot", about having to shift a lot back and forth between the mid and big ring, thats all.
and while I agree with you completely that shifting a triple isnt a big deal, I am old enough to remember riding 5 and 6 speeds, and am still very adept at and enjoy doing downtube shifter simultaneous multi shifts of front and rear cassettes with a couple of fingers on the right hand, so Im not a complete lost cause ;-)
but I do appreciate the smaller percentage jumps that have come with lets say a 9 speed, so less needing to go back and forth between rings, and since touring with 6, 7, 8 and 9 speeds, I havent really seen much of a diff of chain life or rear wheel spoke issues, but then Im a lightweight and am easy on stuff in general.
We have a ten speed bike now in the family, so will be interesting to see how chain life is compared to the 8 and 9s, although I like to maintain stuff well, so that goes a long way to help.
cheers and happy riding no matter the number of speeds.