djb

paul, are you planning a trip or just asking the question?
If so, where, and how much weight will you carry, ie total bike weight
and how much do you weigh?

TiHabanero

This reminds of the "half-step" gearing craze back in the 80's. What became of it?

Tourist in MSN

A few of us are still around, I posted this, above:

For some things I like the half step, for others it does not offer much advantage. When I did my Florida tour in February 2017, it was great because most of my gear shifts were for a slight change of windage or something like that, so most shifts were very small change of gearing.

ColonelSanders

How come?

djb

one aspect of the details of gearing changes is the percentage change between shifts.
With 14, 15, 16, maybe pushing 17% between shifts, the "difference" between shifts is ok and not a pain in the keester----when you get 20% diff between shifts, its a pain in the arse sometimes of being "a bit too low, or a bit too high", in terms of cadence

when I started being serious about riding and got into touring, I had a 6 speed, no recollection of what its gearing was, but my next bike was a 7 speed, and with a 12-30, I had percentage shifts of
15.4%, 13, 15, 17.6, 13.3, 15.4---the 17.6 was a bit annoying at times

go to the 9 speed era and my 11-34 has percentage shifts of:
13.3, 15.4, 13, 15, 17.6, 13.3, 15.4, 18.2---very similar, and liveable with that middle 17.6% jump shift

I ride a commuter with a 7 speed 11-28, and it has a 20% jump shift between the 15t and the 18t cog--which every day I find a bit of a nuisance, and Im not even fully loaded, add a full load and a 20%jump is a pain.

back in the day, with 5 and 6 speeds, bigger percentages were going to be inevitable, so the half step was thought of, to bring the jumps down in terms of percentages.

but today, with 10 speed being commonplace, (and 11 available, or even 12 speeds), you can have a nice 10 speed cassette of 11-36, with very nice percentage jumps of
12.5, 14.3, 16.7, 14.3, 10.5, 11.8, 13.3, 15.4, 18.2

a really nice bunch of slightly closer shifts than a 9 speed 11-32 or 11-34 that used to be the norm,

As someone who has ridden a lot of diff bikes, the modern drivetrains with more speeds, and at least with up to 10 speeds, similar lifespan of chains etc as 9 speed, its pretty cool that you can get your cake and eat it too----nice range of cassettes and reasonabley nice jumps between shifts.
Heck, if you used a mtn triple and a 10 speed system, you could have a tighter cassette, so even closer shifts, and still have a pretty darn good low gear.

phew, long winded response to "what happened to half step gearing", but in the end, more speeds just made the half step redundant, as we can have a larger range of gearing AND lower percentage jumps between shifts.

Carbonfiberboy 

On our tandem, 53-39-26 in front, 12-34 in back. We tend to tour light, maybe 45 lbs. of total load counting everything. Works up to ~17%. Our team age is 142.

djb

I don't think I've said this before, but I love this. Kudos to you and all of the oldes riders on this forum. It's such a wonderful sport that if we take care of our bodies, we are able to participate through various ages.

niknak

38/24 up front and 11-34 in back.

GamblerGORD53

staehpj1

On the TA and my other early tours when I was packing more heavily I used 48/36/26 and 12-32 to start with and swapped out the 26 for a 24. It was adequate.

Since I started packing much lighter I did the ST with 39/26 and 12-28 and it was okay for the Southern Tier. The 39/26 ultra compact double was actually a triple with no outer ring. That was with 14# of UL backpacking gear though so essentially unladen, but I really enjoyed that setup.

My other recent tours were on a mountain bike and a mix of dirt, gravel, and pavement.

If I were to build a bike from scratch now, I think I'd use a 1X10 MTB drive train.

Paul Barnard

Part of the reason that I asked is that I want to build a Lynskey Touring bike for myself for a retirement gift and I want to tour out west. I am 5'11" 175. I have bad knees and live in the flatlands. I will go lightly loaded. Kinda credit card touring. No cooking along the way. I know based on my experiences riding in the mountains that I need the equivalent of 22/34 gearing to comfortably tackle the steep stuff. I want drop bar shifters. Nothing on the flats and nothing on the ends. I have my reasons for that. So as I started trying to mentally assemble my drivetrain, I am finding it doesn't really exist without doing piecemeal work. It looks like most of you are running triples up front and stuff in the 11-34 range in the back, and best I can figure there's not a road group I can buy today that will give me that. I want to buy some good quality stuff.

jefnvk

I'm guessing obsoleted by 11 speed cassettes and compact cranks? Although, I know a few around here still enjoy. My Miyata 610 had it, while I could see some uses, it just seemed like a waste of a chainring for what you actually got when you are running more than five gears on the back.

djb

great points/details/intentions, and makes all the diff in putting out opinions and suggestions.
Really good that you are aware and realistic of what gearing you want at the low end. One of my bikes is with 22/34 and I love the low gearing, its a 26in bike so even lower than 700 stuff, 16.7 gear inches with 2in tires on--and works perfectly for its intended use, ie travelling in far off areas with more weight than usual, spare this, spare that, extra water, food, much steeper hills than we tend to have here in N America.
Thats the great thing with nice low low gearing, its there when you want it, and your knees like it, but with any reasonably range of gearing, you can still ride along at 20kph or 30kph with no problems. From all of my touring experience, it is extremely rare to be able to maintain more than 30kph, or 20mph, and my 26in bike with a 9 speed 44/32/22 and 11-34 covers the range of speeds I regularly ride at, whether it be 5 or 6kph on a hard slog steep hill, or 50kph on a downhill.

On this bike, I too didnt want bar ends or topbar stuff, and shied away from sti's, and went with Gevenalle shifters, hood shifters but very simple. Slightly quirky in some aspects, but they are dead simple and work well when set up properly.
Mountain bike triples (rare today) are slightly low geared for unloaded riding, but as you say, first you have to see what is around still, and then you have to deal with the incompatibilities with sti's and mtn stuff rear/front derailleurs etc.
Were you thinking of going 9, 10, 11 speed?
10 seems to be the new standard, and while there are great cranksets like the deore 48/36/26 ten speed, (which you can easily change out the 26 to smaller rings) you still get the issue of mtn bike vs road shifter issues....
With 10 speed, cassettes like 11-36 or larger can help with things a lot, but ulitimately, its the darn sti shifter problems that come back all the time isnt it?

It will be interesting to see wehre this discussion goes, as I cant recall what sti shifter solutions have been figured out so far in the mtn vs road, dyna-sis vs roadie issues that have been around now for a bunch of years, pretty much since 10 speed came in.

If you lived close, I'd let you try my gevenalle bike, but thats not an option.
Do look at their website though, there used to be some vids on it showing them in use, but in any case, they aren't as nice using as sti shifters, which could be a factor for you. When I say, not as nice, meaning, they are slower, shifting is more deliberate, but at least they are on teh hoods, which I like a lot. Ive spent about 3 months or more riding them in Latin America, and like them a lot, but as I have a sti bike, I do notice the diff with sti. Kinda like a sports car manual transmission vs a slow slightly klunky standard, if you get my drift--a slight over exaggeration, but gives an idea.

cyccommute 

The 36 is just outside of the range of the XTR rear derailer I use. It's a bit clattery. And even I'll admit that the 1 gear inch difference isn't enough to notice. 16 gear inches is still way lower than most people use.

Paul Barnard

I have a thread going up in Bicycle Mechanics about drive train specifics, so we don't need to hash that out here. I just wondered how many tourists were running readily available drive trains. I guess tourists don't make up enough of the market to warrant producing purpose built touring drive trains. I am leaning toward 10 speed as there seems to be more 10 speed stuff available.

fietsbob

At bike shops, and their wholesale sources, there are service & replacement parts, for 8 & 9 speed, available
although the heavily promoted is now 10& 11 & so if you only look at online discounters, that is what you find ..

IMO Gear ratios are more important than "Speeds", a parts count of how many cogs are stacked together on rear hub..

bikenh

50x39x30 generally 50 or 39 depending on how steep the climbs are. 11x27 in the rear. Generally I run 50x39 on the front and 17-19 on the rear. I did a 5400 miles bike including out and back across the Appalachians in 2014 on a single speed 52x19 and 40 pounds of gear. I don't mind standing up for climbs...I do it all the time around home. Currently riding a 50x17 single speed and carrying at least a laptop on me everyday and a couple of times a week carrying groceries adding an extra 6-10 pounds to the bike. I do it all the time, year round so I'm use to it. For someone that rides only a few times a year you needed the granny gears...or someone like me back in 2015 when I didn't realize what I was dealing with(ultra cycling complications that just turned to big boy like me into a woos).

cyccommute 

If the tourist is new or the bike is new, I would say that they are using current technology. But if the bike is old and/or the tourist is old, they are using older cobbled together stuff because they see the old stuff as more capable than the new stuff. Bicycle tourists tend to be a curmudgeonly group with a very deep streak of retro grouchiness running through them (heavy on the grouchy part). That's a large part of the reason that touring bikes are stuck in 1983 in terms of frame material.

And you are correct in assuming that we don't make up that much of the market. Adventure bikes have changed that temporarily but I suspect just that...it's temporary. Some other fad will come along to make shove Adventure bikes off the market.

I would most hardily agree. People have always been more concerned about how many gears they have rather then how the gears work. Even Shimano doesn't seem to know how gearing works which is why we end up with drivetrains with huge gaping holes in them.

Tourist in MSN

Sorry for being off topic, but sometimes Lynskey has a new frame that for one reason or another they want to get rid of it quickly. Might be a return from a dealer, who knows. They still have full factory warranty. I bought my Lynskey Backroad frame on Ebay from Lynskey a year ago. Frame was less than half of what I would have paid if I ordered it on their website. Right now they have two Backroads on Ebay, both size large. I am 6' and 1/2", so not sure if a Large would be too big for you or not. It fits me perfectly. Just wanted to let you know of a couple great deals out there. Those two have the dropouts for a through axle, but you can pay Lynskey for the dropouts for a conventional rear hub.

Some Titanium frames do not have clearance for a triple, my Backroad does. You can see in the photo how the chainstay was constructed to have the room for a third chainring. If you decide you want a triple, make sure that the frame you order has room for a triple.



A friend of mine has a Habanero Ti frame bike that he tours on, he is very happy with that bike. I think his was sold as a cyclocross model.

I want stuff that is reliable, easily replaceable, robust, etc. Thus, I have good quality stuff, but it was not one group to start with. In the photo I am mixing some Campy stuff, some Shimano stuff, a Sram cassette and an inexpensive KMC chain. Although I built up that bike a year ago, I am using a 1990s vintage rear derailleur on it.

One last point - if you get a Lynskey, there are two small screws that hold each rear dropout in the frame. Remove the screws, put some threadlocker on them and re-install. One of mine vibrated loose and caused me a mess of trouble. I told a gal I met that had a Lynskey about that, she said that it had happened to her too.

Paul Barnard

Great post. Thank you. I need an ML in a Lynskey. Are the ones on Ebay also on the Lynskey site?

Tourist in MSN

The Lynskey website is their regular sales system, the ones on Ebay are ones that they decided to sell quickly. The serial number of the frame is listed in the Ebay posting, thus they know which frames will be sold for which price when you buy a frame on their Ebay listings. I think I have seen size large Backroads models about three times after I bought mine a year ago. If there is a specific one you want, it might never show up on Ebay. Or it might in a few days.

Alan S on this forum has an Lynskey Urbano model that he does very light touring with, he has been pretty happy with his from what I can tell.

One quick comment on a surprise I had when I built mine up. The rack mounts are quite a bit higher above the axle than is the norm. Thus, your rack will sit much higher than typical. So, when you go to install a rack on your new Lynskey, your rack will look a bit odd. You can see in the photo of mine (above) how high that mount is above the axle.

It is not the best photo, but this is what my Lynskey looks like on a tour.

bicyclridr4life

26" Mountain Bike set up for touring: Seven Speed 14-34 in back. Currently 28/38/42 BioPace in front, but I might go back to a 22/32/38 in the front.

24" Trike:
Seven Speed 14-28 in rear, 28 tooth in front.

ricrunner

I run 50-34 and 11-34, it is not ideal but is what I have. Will be going to 46-30 when the front chainrings wear out.

cyccommute 

That is too broad a statement. There is nothing about any titanium frame that should prohibit the use of a triple. The tubing diameter on a titanium bike isn't particularly oversized nor are the chain stays necessarily wide on a titanium bike. I have 3 titanium bikes and they all have triples. Two are mountain bikes with wide chain stays like you'd expect on a mountain bike and one is a fast road bike. It still has a triple on it and even a very large triple at that (52/49/30). There were no issues setting up any of these bikes.

Tourist in MSN

I do not think that my comment "You can see in the photo how the chainstay was constructed to have the room for a third chainring. If you decide you want a triple, make sure that the frame you order has room for a triple." was overly broad. I did not say that all Ti frames suffer that problem. I was citing comments I had seen elsewhere about Ti frames often having fatter chainstays that sometimes caused chainring clearance issues with triples. And when some of the newer Lynskeys that are designed for fatter tires which means that the chainstays are spread further apart have a very unusual and what appears to be a more costly modification to the drive side chainstay, that pretty much supports that theory. The non-driveside chainstay is 19mm wide on mine which is one of the fattest chainstays I have seen on a bike that is not a mountain bike, if that was duplicated on the drive side it would be quite close to my chainrings.




Maybe you got lucky with your frames.