So What's With 50T Chainrings?
 

So I've been scouting for a 50t/130mm chainring an it seems as tho they are all made of some incredibly rare and near priceless metal. I mean, I don't think I'm all that scrooge but am I missing something? Is there a secret place to buy them?

OK - I just wanted to whine. Mission accomplished.

I was looking for one last year, and the are hard to find, especially if it's for a performance application. Pricey too!

Have you checked eBay?

John

I got a nice one from the ISO thread.

If you're not brifting, single-speed chainrings can be had in lots of sizes not available elsewhere .The unprofiled teeth and lack of ramps, pins, or other enhancements means that they shift like basically every road chainring made up until about 1987 or so. A little slower and noisier, especially when they're new, but they work fine.

They'd probably work with brifters too, although Sram-man-olo will swear on a stack of negotiable currency that your bike will burst into flames if you try it. Might be a bit fiddlier to set up, and there's gonna be some front shifts that you won't be able to make, like a bail-out shift to the granny while standing on the pedals, but you really shouldn't do that. Walking 100 yards to a good restart spot is way cheaper and less embarrassing than blowing your rear derailleur in half. (Ask me how I know this. Or ask me why I will never run Grip-Shift again, even though they're my favorite indexing MTB shifter of all time. Same answer.)

50s shouldn't be hard to find for 30 bucks or so, in black or silver.

--Shannon

Vintage or any functional chainring? Vuelta make good chainrings for a fair price. I've bought 'em for as little as $7 from Amazon, new but with "damaged packaging" (it was a cardboard foldover stapled to a plastic bag, not a velvet lined exotic hardwood presentation case). The list price of around $20-$30 is very fair.

I have the ramped and pinned 50T Vuelta SE, the plain 38T and 39T small rings. They've all worked fine for a couple of years. I also have something like a 56T, delivered by mistake. I'll probably give it to a friend who likes weird stuff and might be strong enough to use it.

What speed drivetrain? If it’s 10 or 9 speed you can find Tiagra 46** and 45** chain rings on EBay all day long and cheap.

45 != 50
46 != 50

When you want something uncommon you have two choices; pay up or do without it. C&V ain't for the faint of heart or wallet.

The confusing thing is that 50T chainrings aren't uncommon. They just seem to have a high floor price.

If we were at a BF get together the below text would be spoken words and they would include inflection and all the things written words can't convey. IE they wouldn't come off as abrasive. I said all that to say this; I'm making a case for having a passion, like bicycles, and really enjoying it without the "OMG this is more expensive than buying a new bike" feelings.

We can kibitz the terms "uncommon", "rare" or "just plain expensive compared to everything else". It all comes down to this; if you want something specific you have to be prepared to pay the going price or do without it. I'm sitting in my office with a few bikes that have parts on them that I've paid DEARLY for and I smile every time I look at or ride them. I have zero regrets about how much I paid for any of them.

I will back up canklecat on the Vuelta chain rings. The SE plus work really well. The non-ramped also work, not as smooth or quiet, for a bit less money. I have a lot of miles on the SE plus and they are still in good shape. Sugino has them also, made of steel and more expensive. Also, they are not ramped and pinned.

Close to true but with one exception - patience. I have had to wait/hunt/hope for years to get just what I wanted and at a decent price, sometimes darn near free. What sort of things am I talking about.

There is a Campy 50 tooth ring on Ebay right now. I am interested but broke until next pension check. Even then, the price is a bit high but not that high. If I had the bucks, right now and without a raft of cottage maintenance costs to deal with, I would just buy it.

How about a set of Legnano pantographed high flange hubs for nothing other than a simple trade...
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...9797cca667.jpg

or a take-off (NOS) Legnano pantographed cottered crank set with original take-off bottom bracket. Price - $100.00 US...
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...840a052539.jpg

or a Legnano embossed head set picked up for free...
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...34c2a38055.jpg

And, these days I seek a proper fork for my early to mid sixties Torpado Professional. I might never find one but the hunt and hope make it all worthwhile.

All that said, I will never keep a decent old bike, that I am interested in riding, off of the road just because I do not have everything that I need for a bike. I run what will fit/work until just what I want comes along. And, again, I add that the hunt and score makes it all worthwhile.

Your question should be whats with 130mm cranks rather than whats with 50t chainrings.
I think the mix probably makes em a bit uncommon and maybe that makes em a bit more expensive.
110 50t rings are readily available...not sure for how much less though.

this is $29. https://www.universalcycles.com/shop...0aAmseEALw_wcB

Couple hundred 130bcd 50T listings on eBay right now, most are between $12 and $30.

I think this may be the case. 130BCD chain rings, of course, go from 55T down to 39T and most sizes in between.

There is always a combination of factors that create trends. This situation could include the downward trend of front chainrings, the widening trend of rear cassettes,( i.e. the era of "wide doubles,") the aging legs of the cycling population needing gearing less on the top end, the end of the triple as a mainstream application, the limited flexibility of the new cranksets as far as being able to fit multiple needs, and gravel bikes. Toss in the 135BCD of some Campy, and what a soup sandwich it is.

As the 'max says, if you want something specific, you have to be willing to wait, sacrifice, and pay, especially if you want it RFN. Especially polished, ramped 130BCD 50T chainrings. As others say, patience is a virtue. Sometimes a donor bike, bought for the rings and then re-sold with other rings swapped in, is a cheap alternative.

The modern trend seems to be simply starting out with 110BCD and then going from there. This is a bit exacerbated by the move to 4-arm cranksets (and 3-arm are coming).

My suggestion to the OP is to perhaps look at older-school 110BCD cranksets, which are also getting harder to find, then go from there. I've been hoarding a pair of 110BCD triple square-taper cranksets. They look C&V, handle a wide range of rings, and work. Just haven't found a bike for them yet, but my touring rig had one, set up 50/34/26.

Just like my 1973 Raleigh Super Course! The bike industry can't make anything new it seems ;-)

In my way-back vintage days, 50t 130bcd rings were much less common than 52-53t rings. They existed, but almost nobody was spec'ing them on complete bikes, so there was primarily only aftermarket activity. I'm kinda making up numbers, but let's say Shimano was getting OEM orders for hundreds of thousands of 39-53 cranksets for complete bikes, every year, and aftermarket distributor orders in the thousands, maybe tens of thousands worldwide, maybe not.

As 11t cassettes became more popular, 34/50 110bcd compact gearing took over, and 130bcd cranks on new bikes practically disappeared.

There still is an aftermarket for 50t/130, so you can buy new rings, and if it doesn't have a high-end name on it, shouldn't be too pricey. But it ain't a big aftermarket, and there's likely fewer spare 50t/130 rings kicking around our spare parts boxes to find 'em everywhere on the cheap. I might have 2-3 in my 130 chainring box, while I'd probably be underestimating at 10-12 50t/110 rings gathering dust.

Up till now OP/Steel Charlie hasn't told us what he thinks cheap/pricey is in actual dollar terms, but it wouldn't surprise me if 50/130 was thinner on the ground than 50/110.

My recent purchase on the ‘83 UO-14 came with a Stronglight crankset with a 50/38. Surprised me to see it. Personally, I enjoy that 50t on top. Nice gear.

Stronglite 50T 130BCD
 

Stronglite Dural 5083 alloy 9/10 Speed Chainring 130mm BCD five arm spider for Shimano. Works with an 8 speed set up too. Got a 50/38 ring set on a Shimano 1055 crank, running 1056 8 speed STIs with no issues. In the UK retail price £25 ($33?) plus postage.

45** and 46** refers to the Tiagra series.
Tiagra 4550 9 speed 50t 110mm chain ring $27.44 free shipping
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Shimano-Tia...r/112819256828

Boy those hubs are cool... I was surprised first time I saw them. Private label Campy?!?

I miss the good old days when you could order any size of chainring, as well as any assortment of cogs right off the SunTour or Regina board at the local bike shop. I have been heavily into custom gearing for decades, and 50T is one of my favorite outer chainring sizes.

Yikes. I just noticed the same 50T 130 BCB Vuelta SE Plus I bought for $7.36 in 2017 is now $55 on Amazon.

But to be fair, that was an Amazon warehouse sale (supposedly damaged packaging -- it wasn't), and the usual price would have been around $25-$30.

The pandemic has disrupted the supply chain, so it's really weird now. And will be for some time to come. I bought a bunch of parts from REI that I didn't have any immediate need for, but couldn't resist Shimano BB-UN55 bottom brackets for $8 each, or a few older style Shimano and SRAM chains for less than half price. I will need them eventually.

In the two weeks since I bought those, REI's parts pegboard is pretty much bare now. I didn't clean 'em out (I didn't hoard toilet paper either -- I already had enough to last a year since I buy in bulk once or twice a year), so I'm betting other cyclists had the same idea -- buy now because this stuff may not be available for awhile.

Yeah - I know about the bunch on ebay. The scam is that by the time you select 50t the price goes up. Or it comes from China which has not provided a good experience for me yet after several tries. Looks like the Tiagra from Penn @$28(+tax) is the easiest and most likely to show up.

I was just considering the 50t as a means to use that silly 9spd cluster a bit more on the smaller cogs since I'm not really a 53t kinda guy any more. TTTT I never actually saw much use for more than the std.52 AFAIC wimp that I am. To be completely honest the 52x14 was plenty high enough for me even when I was racing vets and that was a few decades ago hahaha.

Anyway, NBD. Like I said, I was just whining. And I did learn looooong ago - pay the price or do without

thanks all