Originally Posted by Nervous_Jerboa

Hi all, about 8 months ago I replaced my car with a vintage road bike and it's been a blast. What started as about a 2 mile daily commute is now closer to 20 miles a day, mostly through Boston and Cambridge. Against the advice of several forum members I did go with a 70s Raleigh Sprite 27. It's not perfect, and I was off to a rough start getting it going, but the price was right, it looks great and most importantly it actually fits my ridiculous body.


Prior to this, I hadn't touched a bike in almost 20 years. I still have a long way to go as far as conditioning, but I feel like I could use higher gearing. The small chain ring hasn't been touched, and I rarely drop below the 3 highest gears. On straights and especially descents I feel like the bike just tops out way too early. So I went on ebay and found a 52t to replace the 49t large chain ring, as well as a Suntour Winner 13-22 freewheel. I believe the Raleigh currently has the original 14-34 freewheel installed, and 49/40 in the front. Is this too drastic a jump? Am I about to render my only means of transportation unusable? I will at the very least probably have to get my front derailleur working with this setup.


On a sort of related note, how much chain slippage would be considered normal when climbing/pedaling hard on the higher gears? I don't think I could consider myself to be a particularly strong rider, so I'm inclined to believe this is down to a combination of bad technique and the condition of the bike when I bought it, plus drivetrain damage sustained early on when I really had no clue what I was doing. The chain does seem to skip a lot, though, and I can't really put much force into the highest couple of gears unless I'm on totally flat or downhill terrain. I should probably just downshift and pedal faster, but that just feels much less natural to me.


Thanks in advance for any insights