rm -rf

I really like my 52-39-30 and 11-34 in 11-speed.
That 30 front - 34 rear low is so nice on steep climbs. I can stay seated at 12% pretty easily, where I have to stand on my other bike's 34 front-32 rear low gear.
The 11-34 is good in the 39 chainring. I rarely use the 52.

(I did swap out the 11-34 for my old 11-28 on a recent long, low elevation gain ride. I wanted lots of close shifts and didn't have any steep climbs on the ride.)

But now, comparing the 11-32 vs the 11-34: the 11-34 is designed for it's lowest gears. The small cog higher gears aren't as evenly spaced as the 11-32 is. The 11-32 makes a better all-around gearing, for lots of flats and shallower grades. It's 6% harder on the steepest grades, though. That's almost one whole shift harder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At typical flat road cadences. Blue is 52, black is 39, red is 30

The 52-39-30 and 11-34:



~~~
compare to the 11-32: Much better spacing between shifts in the 15-22 mph range on the middle 39 chainring.

rm -rf

How many cogs in the cassette? If it's 10 or 11 speed, that 12-25 will have shifts that can be too close together, where you want to shift twice to have a noticeable change in cadence.

Duragrouch

I only use 50:11 (406) on mild downgrades or with a tailwind, or really stoking on the aerobars on the flats; Very high cadence is more difficult for me when in the tuck on the aeros. It's important for me to have, but like I said, I can't see the need for anything taller, despite having much taller gearing on my old road bike, but that was lighter and a lot more aerodynamic than a folder with 4 panniers. Given the limitations on my folder, 21-85 gear inches is not bad, without an IGH. If I expand that, it'll be on the low end.

One Wheel

50-34 x 10-36 12sp, or 110 x 22-112 26sp.

M.Roshi

Thanks for all the insightful input, I'm starting to understand how uninformed my question was.
Looking over the charts, the new ratio will make climbing steeper hills easier but my flats wouldn't change much or the differences are negligible.
I seem to use 14-15-16-17 the most out of the 10 cogs.

M.Roshi

10 speed current 12-13-14-15-16-17-19-21-23-25, new 11-12-13-14-15-17-19-21-24-28

M.Roshi

This LeMond road bike is the easiest bike to climb out of the 3 I ride, the dry weight is under 20lbs, I don't have to get out of the saddle unlike the other 2 I have to.

Smaug1

You're probably a stronger rider than I am, but I just LOVE a REALLY low gear ratio option, even on a road bike. It fills me with confidence that I can conquer ANY hill.

"What you don't have in your legs should be in your gears." as the saying goes.

I did my first gravel "race" a few weekends ago. 50 miles in, I had to walk up the last third of a couple 10% hills.

I want my low gear to be so low that I can barely balance. 1:1 is completely inadequate, IMO.

Besides, what's wrong with a triple chainring? As long as the front derailleur is there anyway, it may as well have three, so the cassette doesn't need such a huge sprocket, which also brings the lowest part of the derailleur hazardously close to the ground...

cyclezen

if you're using 10 spd shifters for either/both - you will get 10 'speeds' regardless of the cassette cog number.... the 11-28 may actually be useable, barely, just wonky at times - times when you really want/need that different gear...
and x-28, vs x-25, will give noticeably easier pedaling, especially on upgrades
I very, very rarely use an x-12, I have no use for an x-11 (700c) Anything above x-12 at 110 rpm is a tuck.
Ride On
Yuri

terrymorse 

Dodgy shifting.

prj71

All of them.

One Wheel

Triples are unfairly maligned. They can be tricky to get right, but they can be, and the ability to auto trim with electronic shifting could be used to make them at least as good as 2x.

PromptCritical 

What electronic front derailleur works with a triple with a 20+ gear range (52/39/30)?

roadfix

Which is better? Only YOU can answer that.

Duragrouch

A few gearing points in general, if not already known by the OP:

1 tooth difference on the (small) high cog, means much greater difference in percentage than 1 tooth at the large (low) cogs. This is why the old "straight block" freewheels or cassettes of 11,12,13,14,15,16,17 are a lot less useful, unless you want finer gear steps in the lower range, and usually, you want the opposite, because at the top end when you are outputting both high rpm and high torque, thus high power, your torque range is more limited, so that's where you want finer steps, if at all. This is why wider range cassettes have increasing tooth gaps between cogs, so for example:
1,1,2,2,3,3,4 on a 12,13,14,16,18,21,24,28 cluster, which has a characteristic "curved slope" to the gears (logarithmic progression), rather than a "straight slope" (linear progression).

Very large (greater than 36?) pie-plate low cogs, have the teeth so far radially from the freehub center, and thinner cogs these days to fit 10/11/12/13 speeds, that alone, they have insufficient lateral stiffness, so require being riveted to adjacent cogs or a large-radius carrier, to reduce the flex and have good quality shifts. With a triple crank, one more chainring at small size, aluminum, and the crank spider already acting as a carrier, the weight penalty is small. And modern triples shift great, especially if old road of 52/42/30, but with 16T gaps normal these days, you can easily go 52/36/24 or lower, and shift fine. I can't recall the chainrings on my half-step+granny, but the jump from inner to middle ring was significant, and handled just fine, down or up. The bigger the gaps between chainrings, the fewer duplicate gears.

The main advantage of a hyperwide 1X cassette is, no duplicate gears, in addition to no front derailleur and shifter weight, and simplicity of shifts.

The advantage of a front derailleur, even for no other reason, is when you drop a chain, a quick and easy shift in front puts the chain back on, with no oily fingers. Even with correct chainline and no lateral wobbles on any gears (although freehub is getting a bit on the loose side), on a short-chainstay bike (20" wheels), sometimes I drop a chain on a shift, and this is only a double crank.

Smaug1

I have a colleague who is a cyclist from way back, and he warned me about it too. I asked him "what's wrong with triple chainrings?" He said: "They don't always work well.
I've had two bikes with triple chainrings and they both worked fine:

• Trek 1000 road bike
• Trek Verve 3 hybrid bike.

Neither of them were top of the line groupsets, either.
On the other hand, I'm having a HELL of a time getting the front derailleur on my 1972 Schwinn Varsity to shift to the large chainring.

SoSmellyAir

You may really miss the 16T cog; the shifts between 15T and 17T is on average 12.5%.

Duragrouch

Yeah I agree. I don't think there is any problem with triples. Even very old doubles could shift poorly. Chainring design has advanced greatly, that's the big difference, way more than front derailleur design. Even late '80s 'rings shifted fine, but now there are very visible design features on the 'rings that were not present back then; shift pins, varying tooth height, even hyperspaceglide-style ramps on some I think.

M.Roshi

This is a conundrum..., I ride those cogs on the big 52T but the new big chainring would be 50T. Would I really feel it in person? but I am getting stronger though.

SoSmellyAir

My best guess would be yes. There are many discussions regarding the 16T cog and the preference for having single tooth caps up to the 17T cog. Mathematically, a two-teeth gap between the 15T and 17T cogs is a much bigger change than a two-teeth change from a 52T chain ring to a 50T chain ring. Why don't you try riding without using the 16T cog and see if you can deal with that?

Duragrouch

52 to 50 is exactly 4% difference in one direction and about the same in the other. Could you feel it? Yes. Would it make a difference? Depends if you are near your cadence or torque limit. Are you a half-step+granny kind of rider, who sets up the chainrings, even though overlapping in ratios, to be a half-(cog)-step different, and splits their shifts, shifting both front and rear every other shift? If so, you would probably notice the difference, though not necessarily bad. If not a half-step person, you may not notice.

My old road bike, originally 2x7, when I went to a triple in front, I went half-step+granny, because with only 7 speeds in back and tall gearing with 700c wheels, half steps in the top end were helpful when on long stretches to fine tune things.

My current bike, 20" wheels and still 7 speed cassette, I have about the lower 2/3 the gear range of my old road bike, thus half steps are less necessary. I have a wide double (50/34), 5 duplicate gears in the middle of the range, and they are darned close, not half-step difference, and it's fine.

EDIT: Oh, if you mean the difference without the 16T, yeah that is a much bigger jump, do as others have said and test yourself.

M.Roshi

Oh, interesting idea!

M.Roshi

Still kinda new to some cycling terminology haha, when I started getting back into riding a bike I most use the middle chain ring because I won't get tired easily, a few months ago I starting using the big chain more to train myself to exert my muscles, I do fall back onto the middle chainring when I feel it getting hard to pedal consistently on the big chainring and play around with the rear cogs to feel that I can still put some torque but still have a easy cadence.

Duragrouch

Based on advice in bike magazines, I've been a "spinner" since I got my first good road bike, stayed on the small (42) chainring for years. These days I have more specific advice, and more helpful for older folks like me.

I don't push a harder (tall) gear when seated, it puts more stress on my kness. I also raise the saddle as high as possible without having to rock my hips to reach the pedal at the bottom, as this keeps my knees straighter and less stress there. But too high and hip rocking is also bad. Most people, it seems, have the seat too low.

When climbing, I either spin up in a low gear, or, upshift a couple gears and stand on the pedals. Too low a gear, cadence is too fast, tire fast. Too high a gear, have to pull too hard on the handlebars, tire fast. Gear just right, and I can climb with just weight on pedals without hard pull, about (guessing) cadence of 50, this is very efficient and easy on knees because leg is straight when under highest force.

With my flat handlebars, longer bar-ends are helpful on standing-climbs, as you'll want a handgrip further forward than when seated. If road bars, on the brake hoods instead of the top back bar.

daviddavieboy

I am trying to figure out my gearing as well. I built up a gravel bike with SRAM and currently using 30-43 chainrings and a 11-34 cassette (12s). My only issue is when on the road I sometimes running out of gears on the top end and on the hills I rarely use the small ring. On ANY sort of downhill I ALWAYS run out of gears and end up spinning wildly just to do 35-40 mph. I have a 34-46 crank ordered so hopefully that will be the sweet spot. FWIW most of my other bikes are vintage with much taller gearing but I am getting older and need to make the hills more enjoyable.