volvostephen

I had a 48x32 front chainring that I used for touring with a 11-34 rear but there were many hills and I walked a lot of them. I switched that to 48-28 and found it much better (didn't walk any hills). The 20 ring difference is drastic and needs to be planned for. To go to the inner, I need to shift down 2 on the rear at the same time otherwise the cadence shift is a bit much. Overall though, I like the 28 inner ring a lot better although it has been falling off a lot too..... Ideally I would run a 44-28 but it is hard to find a 44 to fit my crank.

Tourist in MSN

One more positive note on a triple.

I like to have a lot of gear choices for the range of gears where I do most of my pedaling. On a tour I spend the vast majority of my time in the 55 to 85 gear inch range, a tiny bit of time on gears over 100 gear inches for shallow downhills or strong tailwinds. And a small but important amount of time using a small number of really low gears for serious hill climbing.

It is a lot easier to set up a bike with that kind of gearing when I have a triple. Both the middle and big rings can be used on the flatter sections of road where I spend a lot of time and want a lot of gear choices. And a small single granny gear that is used only for the few gears I need for hill climbing. Even though I am running only an eight speed cassette, I have seven gears between 55 and 85 gear inches where I spend most of my time. And I have adequate lower and higher gearing for both downhills and uphills with a total range of 558 percent.

I also have seven gears in that 55 to 85 gear inch range on my road bike with a compact double and ten speed cassette, but that bike lacks the bigger gears for downhill and more importantly it also lacks the low gears for steep uphills. (I do not tour on that bike, I am only using it as an example.) In this regard I find my eight speed triple setup to be far preferable to a double with a ten speed. Thus, I am sticking with a triple for touring and for my rando bike. My road bike with a double will just be used for flatter riding that is shorter distance where it is unlikely that I will come across much in the way of hills.

And for that same reason, you will never find me on a 1X system either.

For touring I think about 550 percent range of gearing is a minimum. I also tour on a Rohoff bike. It is close to that range at 525 percent, but on tours I have spun out on downhills because of the smaller range.

khutch

My new bike is a double. The old one is a triple but I've been running it as a half step plus granny for a couple of years so it has been effectively a double and even more so when you consider that I rarely used the half step option. It is great if you like fine gear increments but I guess I am not that guy because I never used it much. It was intellectually satisfying to know that it was there. The new bike is an 11-42 ten speed on the rear and 28/42 on the front. Now the rear was 11-36 when I got it but I spent too much time on the Wolf Tooth website while looking at various bikes and considering how to fix the woefully inadequate low gears on many so called touring bikes. Personally I am more concerned about the low gears than the high but a decently wide rear cassette lets you get one without compromising the other too much from a double no matter which way your preference lean.

I'm unimpressed with X1 gearing so far. I might have bought a X1 bike however if it had the other features I was looking for. Something like the FSA/Metropolis Patterson two speed planetary crankset would work well with a X1 rear setup.

velojym

I was looking at my bikes, and working out what I want to do with them... I'm a good enough mechanic that I can re-purpose them rather than buying new... but buying a new bike would be nice... (In the name of marital harmony, stop!)

...ok...

Anyway, when I was in great shape, I even considered singling out my JTS up front, but it didn't really bother me to have the extra range up there, just starting to weight weenie, but that's not a WW type of frame anyway. Now, way out of shape, I was looking at using a single front on my Cannondale "fat guy" bike, but looking at the gear ranges available (without going to an expensive new drivetrain) convinced me to keep moving in my original direction. From 22/34 to 44/11 is pretty wide, and I think the former gives me less than 17 gear inches, so I can churn my way up some hills I'd otherwise peter out on.
I'll leave Jake as-is, though. If/when I get down to the mid-200s I'll give him a nice overhaul, new saddle and bar tape, and we'll ride off into the sunset together.

seeker333

Triple FTW - most range and usually more "true" gears despite redundancy. Double and single chainring drivetrains usually reduce gear range, have larger steps between gears, and are less efficient. Single ring drivetrain may seem like an improvement since it eliminates a derailleur, shifter, and ~1/3 or the cable/housing, but the result will be a poor chainline most of the time on a 1x11 or 1x12, with the same friction/inefficiency as riding cross-chained on a triple drivetrain. An experienced cyclist can sense the difference between an ideal ~99% efficiency straight chain run and the 90-95% efficiency resulting from a cross-chained or otherwise misaligned chain operating condition.

Those who lack the motivation/skill/curiosity to learn or understand derailleur adjustment are more likely to favor simpler 1x or 2x drivetrain. I'd rather take a couple hours to learn how it works and then forever get an extra 0.5-1.0 mph free speed from a more efficient drivetrain. Even 0.5mph is significant for loaded touring scenario with average speed of 10mph (5%).

Here's a useful tool to compare and visualize drivetrain options: https://www.gear-calculator.com

pataspen

On my tour from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego I used the the big ring (48T) only a handful of times. I learned that my middle ring (36T) was enough to get me up to about 26 MPH.... obviously only on the downhills. Any faster than that I was perfectly happy to coast. So after that trip I ditched the big ring and have been totally satisfied with a 24-36 double.

HTupolev

They're still the only way to achieve nice tight spacing across the classic spirited road-riding range and simultaneously have super-low bailouts available, at least without doing half-step or similar arrangements (and that has its own difficulties, since most modern cassettes don't have appropriately even spacing for it).

No, you've got lots of gears that are higher than 1-to-1, and some gears that are lower. Your 36-12 combination is 3-to-1.

Even on your high-diameter wheel setup, topping out at a 1-to-1 ratio would be extremely low; you'd need to spin a brisk ~110rpm just to go 10mph.

Power losses related to chainline tend to be 1% or less*, and the impact this has on speed will tend to be less than half a percent.

*Going by the frictionfacts study on sprocket size and chainline.

Tourist in MSN

I try to avoid the two most cross chained gears for each chainring. Thus with an eight speed cassette and a triple, instead of the theoretical 24 gears I only use 18 gears on my two derailleur touring bikes.

For touring I prefer bar end shifters for a couple reasons. But one key reason is when I put my hand on the shifter, just by the position of the lever I can tell if I am up on the small sprockets, or down on the biggest sprocket or someplace in the middle of the cassete. Same with the front shifter. And one reason I do not like brifters very much is that I can't tell what part of the cassette you are on because there is no feedback mechanism to tell you where you are on a cassette by feel. I find that I frequently cross chain with brifters but virtually never cross chain my derailleur touring bikes.

I think I am an experienced cyclist. But I can't feel any difference in "efficiency" or rolling resistance from cross chaining. But when badly cross chained, I usually notice much more chain noise.

This past spring I bought a new road bike with a compact double and ten speed cassette, uses brifters for shifting. I adjusted the front derailleur to give me chain rub when I am on the two most cross chained gear for each chainring so I have an audible warning when I am cross chained.

And my rando bike uses a brifter for the rear, friction downtube shifter for the front triple. I have no good warning of cross chaining on that bike other than a noisier chain.

DropBarFan

I'm doubtful there, downshifting front is the quicker/smoother part whether double or triple. Only time I had noticeably slow shifting was when I installed a small chain-ring that was 2-4 teeth less than stock...shifting from small to middle took a couple of seconds.

Good point, I had forgotten about that. With brifters it can be bothersome to have to look down to see which cog is being used, esp on descents. OTOH with bar-end shifters/friction front, if one listens to music via ear-buds it's hard to hear if front derailleur is rubbing. Well I don't listen to music much anymore while riding so no biggie; safer not to anyway. Pinion P.18 transmission is interesting for the huge gear range but is quite heavy.

Tourist in MSN

Agree, but I have not researched it much. I have a Rohloff bike already, I can't really think of a good reason to also get a Pinion bike.

My Rohloff bike is an S&S bike with 26 inch wheels, the 26 inch wheels pack easier than 700c. Not sure if the Pinion can be made to fit the entire bike in an S&S case. That is not a deal breaker issue, but when I am thinking about using my S&S bike on my next trip which will be international, that comes to mind.

DropBarFan

Co-Motion apparently builds coupled Pinion bikes but their Pangea, for instance, would run over $7,000, ouch! Maybe the lighter wallet helps make up the Pinion weight.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks for checking.

TiHabanero

I have toured all over the Midwest and the south down to the gulf with a double crank. 39 tooth small, 32 out back. Camping gear and tent, too. I suspect many a mountain would be walked with that set up, but we don't have mountains in the Midwest. Get a triple with a 22 or 24 if you plan to ride mountains.

Tourist in MSN

Apparently I live in a different Midwest than you do.
https://www.horriblyhilly.com/

boomhauer

DropBarFan

A biker at the Blue Ridge Parkway told me that Hannibal MO had climbs that were much steeper. 12 RAGBRAI's had over 6,700m climbing:

Myth-busting the RAGBRAI and Ride the Rockies bike tours ? Biking Bis

MidWest has huge flat parts of course but for versatility a wide gear range is still nice.

mstateglfr 

There are tons of parts of IA, MO, WI, MN, etc that would be brutal on 39/32 with loaded gear. Itd be tough to ride some hills in 39/32 unloaded around me in lil ol Iowa.
Every rider has a different ability- clearly. I would say you are in the top 5% with that gearing. Whats norm/average shouldnt be based on your setup, even for the midwest.

indyfabz

Yep. The person to whom you responded must have zero touring experience, at least in mountainous regions. I can't stand wide spacing, particularly when climbing. I also remember the alleged fiddle factor of triples being a favorite claim of a now-banned user who used to haunt the Touring forum.

tmac100

In 2006 I was bicycling the Savannah Way (Australia) and I met a fellow going around the country (eventually wrote a book on his travels). When he saw my bike he mentioned he saw it at a bike shop in Cairns and decided to copy mine and use bar ends. It seemed both of his brifters died along the Cape York road and he rode N and then S in one gear. Stopped at the bike shop in Cairns and changed over to bar ends... From Cairns he completed his round Australia trip with the bar-ends.

FWIW, I did that Savannah Way trip (but only to Darwin) and then Perth to Sydney with the bar ends.... Reliable they are..

raria

Thanks. Looks like lots of people tour on doubles.

djb

well, thats one way to look at it, doesnt look that way to me, but hey, if it works for you and your knees, thats all that matters.

Cyclist0108

46/30T chainrings with 11-34 or 11-36T cassettes.

This gives me gearing at least as low as my erstwhile 1990 Trek 520, and has the advantage of working with Di2.

J.Higgins 

This is the truth of it. *bows to sensei*

Tourist in MSN

Until a few years ago if you were using a double you probably were using a compact crank with a small ring of 34T.

Double cranks that have two different size BCD chainrings is a pretty new offering. So, now it is easy to set up a bike with a smaller granny gear that is better sized for touring. Thus, I think there are more doubles in use for touring now than in the past.

I have given a bit of thought to using such a system on my road bike to take some of the pressure off my knees when hill climbing. This is basically a triple crank with a bashguard in the outer chainring position.
https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m2b0s109...h-Zicral-Rings

fietsbob

"Q" went out the window, after designers curved the crankarms ..

A; Range of ratios.. My triples the smallest chainring
has just about half the tooth count of the largest ..
50-40-24, or 52-42-26 .. 48-36-22

(now there is an internal gearbox triple crankset , they shift very fast,
even when stopped)





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