Changing chainring to a “non-traditional” gearing 50/34 —> 50/42
I recently got a new road bike after having ridden my previous bike for 13 years. My previous bike had a triple chainring, where the middle and larger chainrings were 42 and 52t. I literally *never* used the smallest chainring, as I would often drop the chain if for some reason I did end up shifting down.
Anyway, shiny new bike arrives and it’s a double chainring 50/34t. I find this gearing to be really terrible. The 34t chainring is too small to be useful to me, and so I find myself riding in the larger chainring almost exclusively. Gut instinct is that changing the small from 34t to 42t (to be more like my older bike) would be great - I feel like I’d get a lot more out of the bike overall.
What are the downsides to replacing the small chainring? Why should I NOT do this?
I don’t know enough about gear ratios to really understand the potential downsides, so I’d love any input/suggestions folks have. Fwiw the rear cassette on the new bike is 11-30t, the old bike was 12-25t.
Last edited by guapo337; 09-07-21 at 08:55 AM.