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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Madison, WI
Posts: 11,199
Bikes: 1961 Ideor, 1966 Perfekt 3 Speed AB Hub, 1994 Bridgestone MB-6, 2006 Airnimal Joey, 2009 Thorn Sherpa, 2013 Thorn Nomad MkII, 2015 VO Pass Hunter, 2017 Lynskey Backroad, 2017 Raleigh Gran Prix, 1980s Bianchi Mixte on a trainer. Others are now gone.
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Agree with Robow, a high gear of mid 80s gear inches is pretty low.
I have one touring bike that I set up with a high gear of 85.1 gear inches for touring and on shallow downhills I often wish I had a higher gear. But that is a very heavy duty (and heavy) bike, so I only rarely need a higher gear on that bike when touring. When I am not touring on that bike, I use a bigger chainring for my near-home riding to give me higher gears.
My other two touring bikes have triple cranks, smallest chainring is 24, biggest is 46, that works pretty good for me with an 11/32 cassette. I have toured with a big ring of 52, that was bigger than I needed, thus changed to 46 instead.
Some people on this forum use a biggest chainring as small as 42, but that would be too small for me.
On the 11 or 12 tooth smallest sprocket, my bikes with 11/32 cassettes have both an 11 and 12 tooth sprockets. I rarely use either of them unless it is a shallow downhill, if I lost one of those two sprockets it would not bother me very much. But, with a chainring that is 46 or 52, that is a much higher gear than you would have with a 34.
Last edited by Tourist in MSN; 11-07-20 at 08:20 AM.