thehammerdog

not sure of best choice go down size of chain ring or up cog. how does one decide.
44 x16 is what came on bike.
just unable to pushwith comfort in my area.

veganbikes

Six of one half dozen of the other. I would personally go up in cog but that is me. Maybe a little easier? Plus you could upgrade the cog which is a nice thing.

44/17 is a fine ratio and I have been enjoying mine fairly well.

thehammerdog

thanks...in hilly nwnj i am just not able to enjoy the current set up.

rewop12

A 44 tooth is already a small size for a chainring so I would change the cog for something like a 17 or 18 tooth since it'll be easier and cheaper.

noglider 

Cogs are cheaper than chainrings, so there is that.

rustystrings61 

I'm with Tom/noglider - cogs are less expensive and having a small collection of them isn't a bad thing!

You didn't mention wheel or tire size, but I'm gonna assume 700C, and that you're running somewhere around 25 or 28 mm tires. If those assumptions are true, you currently have around 72 gear inches, 44x17 would get you around 68-70 gear inches, while 44x18 lands you around 64-65 gear inches. If you go play around with the late (and much-missed!) Sheldon Brown's gear calculator you can fine tune which gears for your riding style. Somewhere around 70-point-something is the sweet spot for me in what South Carolina real estate types have taken to calling The Lakelands, with lots of rollers and a few nasty but mercifully short spikes. I get that using 42x16 and 45x17 on 28 mm tires or 44x17 on 35 mm tires.

The old British time trialing guys used to (and perhaps still do) run a trials series with a 72 gear inch limit. British cycling manuals written when single-speeds and fixed-wheel were still the norm often advocated a 65-in gear for gentlemen and a 60-in gear for ladies. 42x16 seems to be a widely used gear for a lot of fixed conversions, though that may be the result of ready availability of 42T chainrings.

On the other hand, the old C.O.N.I. manual called for lower gears (my copy is long gone) in the low 60s and into the 50s to perfect one's form. I don't think they were thinking so much in terms of general riding, though so much as early season training.

Rolla

I generally swap out chainrings, just because the difference is more subtle.

I was riding 40 X 17 (61.8 gear inches) and went to a 39 X 17 (60.23 gear inches).

Had I instead switched the freewheel to an 18T, it would have dropped to 58.3 gear inches, which was lower than I wanted.

JohnDThompson 

Sprockets tend to be less expensive than chainrings. Keep in mind that changing by more than a couple teeth up or down will probably require changing the chain length as well. A 1-tooth change on the rear will make a bigger difference than 1-tooth change on the front. If you do skid-stops, consider going to a prime number tooth count on either the front or the rear (e.g. 17 tooth rear or 43 tooth front) to maximize the number of skid patches on your tire.

thehammerdog

sprocket change is the way to go as is cheaper figure 17 as 18 may need new chain.
wanna up grade crankz come spring.

veganbikes

My favorite cranks at the moment are the Sugino 75 Direct Drive cranks for road usage. I like external bottom bracket cranks and I cannot lie. Upgrades are awesome and I just wish I could afford to build up the ultimate dream fixed gear road bike they have my crank now, Sugino Super 75 Direct Drive so it can be done. Unfortunately a new bike is way out of the question now and that bike is even further out of the question.

In case someone was wondering my crazy dream bling bling fixed gear which is a little close to what I am currently riding but downgrading in a bunch of areas:
Firefly titanium fixed gear road frame with engraved logos with red anodizing in the engraving and Gold S3 style anodized panels surrounding them. Polished titanium stem and seatpost with the same anodizing and Zipp SL-70 Ergo carbon bars. Phil Wood hubs laced to Velocity A23 rims and Double Butted Silver Phil Wood spokes and nipples (all polished and just hubs and rim anodized to the Gold S3 coating) Cane Creek eeBrakes in polished silver with red Jagwire Elite Link Housing linked up to gutted SRAM Red AXS levers (if possible). Of course Sugino Super Zen DD2 crankset and EAI Gold medal cog with Izumi Super Toughness chain.

thehammerdog

my cheapo pure fixie is fun i plan to upgrade cranks, wheels get higher end parts the buy new cool uber frame and swap it all out...yes not the best way to go but ill hang some good stuff onto my cheapo yet fun and comfy frame for now.

new white brakes just got.

veganbikes

It is a start and you gotta start somewhere. Sometimes it is incremental upgrades but you learn what you like and don't like so you can shape your next bike or a dream bike down the road.
Curious though on the Vision brake levers, what cables are you running? I do remember noting in my brain cavity that they required special cables but that could have changed at some point or I could be remembering wrong.

Love a good bullhorn/base bar set up. I keep waffling back and forth on that for myself as my old Langster had it but I do like the hoods on my drops. The look is always good.

thehammerdog

yes, i had some sweet bars and levers from an old Tribike build 26mm clamps crap generic cables added cheapo white calipers to fancy the bike up.
wheels smoorh but cheap heavy. 54cm i ride 56 road i was surprised it fit so well. heavy steel rides very nice.
i do love it. i will end up havinf $1k in parts on what is $100 frame before i upgrade. frame is in great shape just shat.

c_m_shooter

https://www.statebicycle.com/collect...8t-40t-42t-44t

Here you go. Normally I'd recomend a new cog, but you are running a freewheel. You also don't have much adjustment left, so an 18 tooth freewheel would also require a new chain. Front chainring seems cheaper in this case.

veganbikes

Ok good to hear. Glad you didn't need anything special. Maybe it was a different lever or a different era of that lever.

54,56...don't always mean the same thing in different brands. I found my ideal size for All-City for instance is generally a 52 and my main road bike is a 54.5 and my touring bike and Langster is a 56. Now that I have been pouring over geo charts more often I find myself looking at different sizes rather than just relying on a number they give.

Gresp15C

Replace whichever one is the most worn out.

thehammerdog

nothing worn not ridden much but i ordered a 17tooth and hope 1 extra cog is enough and does not require new chain.

Mikefule

Because the chainring is bigger than the sprocket, a change of one tooth on the sprocket makes more difference to the ratio.

The percentage effect of a change can be calculated by:

Chainring: new size divided by old size.
For example, a change from 46 to 49 would make your ratio 49/46 as big. 49/46 = 1.07, so a 7% increase.
Or, a change from 49 to 46 would make your ratio 46/49 as big. 46/49 = 0.94, so a reduction of 6%.

Sprocket: old size divided by new size.
For example, a change from 16 to 20 would make your ratio 16/20 as big. 16/20 = 0.8, meaning a reduction of 20%.
Or, a change from 20 to 16 would make your ratio 20/16 as big. 20/16 = 1.25 meaning an increase of 25%

This is why on a multi speed derailleur, the 2 (or 3) chainrings are very different in size, but the adjacent cogs on the rear block are much closer in size. It is also why very small cogs on the block tend to be 1t different, and the larger ones (lower ratio) are often a few teeth different.

So you can always estimate what difference a change of one or the other will make. As a general rule, as with derailleurs, changes at the back for fine tuning, changes at the front for fundamental changes to allow for very different conditions.

A change much less than 10% is unlikely to be worthwhile. Much more than 15% would be very noticeable.