Originally Posted by
Maelochs
I have one of those on my shelf ... had issues with one crank arm, and swapped it out until another came in the mail, never ut it back. Did a ton of miles on it as a commuter---excellent around-town/carrying a load gearing with a normal cassette.
If 52x14 is too low for you, you wouldn't like it for road use but it is great for off-road---gravel and dirt, mild single-track.
Thats what I was thinking. But sometimes i would prefer something lower than 40t up front. I wouldn't say that 52x14 is too low. Its actually a super versatile gear in the sense that I can use it from anything from hills to cruising on flat surfaces. I just want to have an 11 or 12t cog reserved strictly for downhill sprinting.
Does something with more teeth than 34 in the rear cassette make sense for road and gravel use?
What about for singletrack? Would you prefer a 1x? 2x? Or the good old 3x like on the biopace? And what sort of rear cassette?
I'm mainly.tempted to try the 3x biopace crankset because the arms are 175mm versus 170.
What do you think of 11 vs 12 or 14 for the top gear? I've read that 11 isn't too useful for anyone but the racer group or something like that.