You know, I actually fell down the
BIKE GEAR rabbit hole.
And it largely began with C&V.
Ok, so years ago I wanted a little higher gearing and I found a 54T front chainring to replace the ailing 52T (had been drilled, broken,and welded before I got it, and eventually broken again). Of course 42T for the low chainring, and eventually 41T.
I could occasionally find 12T freewheels, but had troubles with them skipping, so I generally rode something like a 13-21 or 13-23 freewheel.
Masher at Heart, I found myself riding slammed in the 13/54 combo most of the time.
Fast forward to about 6 years ago and I found an 11-28 DNP Epoch 7-speed freewheel. Unfortunately the 11-13-15-18-21-24-28 gearing had too many gaps for my taste.
I then discovered that I could go hog wild with a Capreo 9-26 9-speed cassette (9,10,11,13,15,17,20,23,26).
Again, like the DNP Epoch, I was missing the 12T and 14T.
So, I discovered I could make a hybrid cassette: 9,10,11,12,13,14,15,17,19.
I did reasonably well with that, but started hunting for a couple of lower gears.
My next iteration was a whole new bike build.
39-54 front, 11-speed on the rear, modified hybrid 11-speed cassette: 9,10,11,12,13,14,15,17,19,21,23
I was reasonably happy with that combination until I got sucked into some hill climb rides and started bottoming out on the low end.
So, new crankset and got: 34-53 x 9-23 11-speed.
Time for the next generation?
I may give up on the 9T, and go with:
SRAM Red 12-speed with (10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,19,21,24,28), and figure out what to mate with it.
