John E

Blame it on the popularization of the 7-speed freewheel and the use of corncob freewheels in racing.

52-42/14-18 = 100, 94, 88, 83, 76, 71, 67, 63 if one avoids cross-chain

53-39/13-19 = 110, 102, 95, 89, 84, 80, 75, 70, 66, 62, 58, 55 if one avoids cross-chain

repechage

Shimano tried with the intro of the first generation of Dura-Ace promoting 52/40, then 53/39. It took a while for it to take off. Old habits die hard.
If you look back at the development of the front dérailleur, the ability to effectively handle even a ten tooth spread lagged. Yes, there were French constructeur bikes that had big differences, but the performance was for congenial use, not the duress of racing.
The Campagnolo copy era really did set the 42t inner ring for a long interval.

repechage

Got to watch the 1974 Nationals in Pontiac MI, useless course, impressive racing. CRCofA at the time really controlled and exploded the field. I think JH used a 54t big ring that day.

verktyg 

Until at least the late 70's no serious hardcore raceur would be caught dead on anything but a full Crampagnolo bike!

A few newbies and nimrods rode all French Peugeot PX-10's. For a long time, PX-10's came with Stronglight 93 cranks with 52-45T chainrings and 5 speed 14-26T freewheels. Never could see the logic with that combination.

Maybe 10% to 15% of the riders used barcons. Mostly taller riders on 60cm and lager frames. It was a reach for them to get to the down tube levers.

I rode an all Campy bike for a while then switched to Stronglight 93 cranks with 49-45T chainrings, a 5 speed 13-26T freewheel and 1st generation Suntour Cyclone derailleurs.

Stronglight chainrings shifted much better than Campy with the chains available at the time. There was NO comparison in the performance between Campy NR and Suntour Cyclone RDs.

I used a 53T chainring with a 13-21T freewheel for several time trials. No idea what the inner chainring was... never got off of the "big plate"...

That chainring sat in a box from the mid 70's until a few weeks ago when I put it on a frame that I gave to a friend.

One bike that I bought came with 53-42T Suntour Superbe Pro cranks. Since it's all Suntour and I only ride it on the flats it will stay that way.

Most of my other bikes that came with 52T chainrings have been switched to 49T or 50T. It gives me a little more chain to work with when I set up a 28T to 32T large sprocket with a standard capacity rear derailleur.

verktyg

Chas.

13-31T FW with a Campy NR derailleur, 13-30T with a Huret Challenger, another 13-30T with a Huret Challenger,13-32 with a Shimano 105, 13-30T with a Campy Victory... You get the picture

Andy_K 

Sorry I'm late. I've been out of town on business.

To summarize,

52/42 is a sensible double if you like to shift the front a lot and your smallest cog is 14T (is this half-step?).

52/39 improves the smaller ring for non-heroic riders but the 52T became too big to be reasonable when 12T cogs came along. This lends itself to a shifting pattern where you use the small ring until you're going fast and then you switch to the big ring to go fast. Both rings leave almost half the cassette unused but it's different halves, so that's OK.

50-39 is more reasonable until a weak rider like me meets a hill.

50-39-30 keeps the nice shifting pattern of the 50-39 but adds a bail-out gear.

50-34 trades in the nice 50-39 double for a single ring which is obviously too big and trades in the useful bail-out gear for something less useful.

46x10-50 attempts to fix the 50-34 compact double's twisted vision, but at the cost of being obviously ridiculous.

50-39-30 is obviously the correct choice among these options.

(How was that? Dogmatic enough?)

BTW, I have a 50-34 on my '84 Pinarello and I think it's great for riding on the open road. My main objection to compact doubles is when I try to use them for my suburban commute, which invariably leads to me going on the sort of rant that has apparently given me somewhat of a reputation,

79pmooney

A little history. In the early '70s, Campagnolo's high end line was 52-42 on a 144 BCD crankset. 42 was the smallest ring that fit a 144 BCD. (I know, 41s existed. A poster said the other day he has 3 of them. I have never seen one and until that poster, heard on someone actually seeing one maybe twice in 45 years. For most of us, they are about as common as unicorns.) Other manufacturers made cranksets that could take smaller chainrings (Stronglight and TA for two) but Campy was THE race standard. Sugino followed suit. Shimano came out with their 39 tooth crankset but until close to 1980 Shimano wasn't thought of very highly in a lot of racing circles. So by 1980, there were a lot of high end racing bikes out there with 52-42 cranksets. (Of course, these rings could get pushed up and often were. My Fuji Professional came with a Sugino 54-44 (144 BCD). I quickly bought a 53 and 42 and put those on for 95% of my riding and racing. Soon after won a 43 in a race. Acquired a 52 along the way.

The 144 BCD and the 52-42 were big advances from the early derailleur days when 52-48 was common and used as 1/2 step gearing on fairly tight racing freewheels. The 10 tooth chainring difference required a rear derailleur that could take up the slack. SunTour started the big change by introducing a derailleur that was an advance of several steps. Now the 14 tooth difference of the 53-39 was very feasible but SunTour and its industry partner, Sugino stayed on the racing standard 144 BCD. Shimano came out with its 53-39 but since they did not yet have the advanced derailleur design (SunTour held the patent until the early '80s) the wider range crankset hadn't found it's niche yet. SunTour's patent expired, Shimano and everybody else copied the RD geometry, 53-39 now took off, indexing that worked (thanks to SunTour's RD geometry) was introduced and the rest was history.

But in the '70s 52-42 ruled. 53-39 existed but did not offer real race quality shifting was and avoided by most race shops, suppliers and mechanics.

Ben

verktyg 

No. Half Step gearing is usually a 4 tooth, sometimes 5 tooth difference in the chainrings. For example: 52-48T, 51-47T (this was pretty common on racing bikes in the early 1960's), 50-46T etc.

About 1974-75 I wracked my brain doing "gear freaking" with chart paper and then trying out the results.

What I came up with was 49-45T chainrings with a custom 13-26T freewheel. This gave me a 47" to 101" range. I could use all 10 speeds.

By shifting either the front or the rear I got about a 5% ratio change. Shifting both at the same time resulted in about a 10% change. I learned to shift both levers with my right hand.

I built 13-21T and 13-23T FWs for flat rides like time trails. I could get about the same percentage of ratio changes with those as with my 13-26T.


Today, most of my 1960's and 70's bikes have more or less alpine gearing. My later bikes have 6, 7 and 8 speed FW's or cassettes. I don't bother figuring out any stinkin' ratios! Whatever feels good on the knees works!

verktyg

Chas.

verktyg 

In the realm of cycling Campagnolo and all things Italian ruled!

verktyg

Chas.

OldsCOOL

I have a Campy 49t "small" chainring in my shop. My legs hurt just looking at it. It was combined with a 15-21 freewheel on my Colnago.

seypat

Thanks for the info. I run 52/42/30 triples on my bikes. I still get the standard double and a bailout gear. The standard double is great for flatland cruising. The middle ring is the only one that uses every rear cog. Most of the Suntour front derailleurs I have tried will shift that setup.

seypat

There is a 144BCD 51T chainring on the Hillary Stone website. The brand starts with a G. Maybe Gebhart?

John E

A three-tooth drop in front, e.g. 49-46 or 50-47, was also extremely popular, because it works so well with 14-16-18-20-23(-26) or 14-16-18-21-24(-28) in back. I like it because I can change between 1.5-step for hilly rides and half-step for flat rides, simply by swapping the inner chainring on my Bianchi:
50-42/14-16-18-20-23-26 vs. 50-47/14-16-18-20-23-26.

verktyg 

What none of the Hawkeyes have mentioned that Campagnolo brought out their own 53-39T cranks in 1984! Originally called "Record" but quickly renamed C-Record.

They had a bastardo 135mm BCD that no other company made. Campy used 135mm BCD cranks from 1984 until well into the 2000's.

They also made the multi bastardo 116mm BCD Triomphe, Victory and Gran Sport Touring cranks with 35 to 53T chainrings.

My 1987 Bianchi Giro came with a Campy Victory gruppo with 53-39T chainrings.

Please see the picture of the 5 speed 17T straight block freewheel for REAL MEN!

verktyg

Chas.

Bandera

'84 was the year that DA 7400 with Indexed shifting and Look clipless pedals were introduced rendering Campag of any flavor obsolete as well as overpriced.

-Bandera

bulldog1935

What you'd soon discover with wide 5- and 6-speed freewheels and alpine chainrings are huge cliffs (bigger than 10 inches) between gear steps, as well as gear overlaps, giving you fewer gears in fact than counting cogs would tell you.
When you're riding on your own, it's not such a problem.
But if you're trying to keep up with friends who have narrow gear steps in the cruising range, you're SOL.
Half-steps are a quick answer for filling in those cliffs with usable gear steps - this is a 13-28 freewheel with 46/41T half-steps on a Strada-clone crank

Salamandrine 

Yep. 7400 was a big leap forward. Clipless pedals were a giant leap. Slotted cleats and clips, in retrospect, sucked.

Also, Tullio Campagnolo died in 1983. In my view, Campagnolo died with him.

Anyhow, yeah, both shimano and campy when to 53/39 at the same time. Prior to this, 53/42 was pretty common among racers. Some euro pros were running 53/39 before this on Assos cranks and other stuff that was rare in the USA.

Avocet/Ofmega also made a 41t chainring that would work on 144 campy cranks just barely if you used a sedisport chain.

SteelCharlie

"Today, most of my 1960's and 70's bikes have more or less alpine gearing. My later bikes have 6, 7 and 8 speed FW's or cassettes. I don't bother figuring out any stinkin' ratios! Whatever feels good on the knees works!

verktyg

Chas."
__________________

Word!

35 years ago I had 52/42 and 14-18 on everything and didn't need anything else. Today it's 52/39 and something/24 or 25. And I'm not even gonna say I don't need anything else but that's what I have. On the rise of the 53 - Looky At Me I'm A Racer!!! Face it folks, lotsa racers gutted it out with a 52 and managed to do OK.
On downhills I can roll off a 53/12 just about as fast as a 52/14 but being old and fat prolly helps that happen.
So for all those folks out there that have been "training" for 20 years and never been in a race - - I have some 53's that are waiting for you to buy them.

Charlie

verktyg 

Point of interest: freewheel sprockets under 14T loose efficiency... Documented in Frank Berto's book "The Dancing Chain"...

Those kinds of things were figured out well over 80 years ago.

verktyg

Chas.

seypat

I meant to say it was a 41T.

bulldog1935

TA still makes the 41T 144bcd chainring. Most UK and EU vendors sell it, SJS, Spa, etc.

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/chainrin...nring/?geoc=US
like here at SJS, you might find it by searching Campy rather than TA since it fits a Strada crank.

Here's my daughter's Team Fuji sporting my old Sugino Mighty Comp with 50/41T rings
(and 9sp rear)

rando_couche

That would all be thanks to Campagnolo. Their 144 bolt circle limited your small ring to 42 and the NR/SR derailleur didn't handle anything bigger than 24t easily. Oh, and the pros got by with 42-52 x 13-21, so of course everyone else had to as well.

SP
OC, OR

thenomad

I was used to 42 52 decades ago as it was the standard but man, that 39 is a welcome improvement.
Now I like to spin instead of mashing and a 39 50 is fine

ThermionicScott 

I like it.

fietsbob

The Manufacturers of the components Changed , 144 bolt circle crank was replaced by 130 and 135 making it possible .

andr0id

Yes, when I started riding, the inside of the large ring was just as flat as the outside. Nobody had thought of adding barnacles and grooves to assist the chain moving UP to the big ring. You could get other size rings, but more than a 10 tooth difference was unreliable and took some babying to accomplish. There was a guy that came to our shop that had a 60 tooth big ring, he would have to shift it by hand. (Yeah, 60 was crazy, we called him Sprocket Man and sang about him to the tune of Rocket Man.)

That was the first time I could afford Dura Ace. I probably rode my 7400 group for 10 years. I had indexed down tube shifters and 7 speeds!! I still have the receipt in a box somewhere, I paid... wait for it... $360.00!! That probably included hubs.

I never rode Looks, I got PD-7401s when they came out though.