Tourist in MSN

I expect that putting on a 24T chainring will be easy.

For a few years I used a 24T granny gear, and the stock 42 and 52 chainrings on a road triple for touring. Used that with a 11/32 Sram eight speed cassette. I tried to avoid using the two most cross chained gears on each chainring, thus only used 18 of the gears.

Saddlesores is correct, it is unlikely that your rear derailleur can take up all the slack in the chain. When you are on big and big (52 and 32) and then drop to small and small (24 and 11) that is a difference of 49 teeth. But I found when I did that, I used an 90s vintage XT derailleur (in the photo in my previous post above) and as long as I did not use the two smallest sprockets (11 and 12T) when I used the 24T chainring (which were highly cross chained gears), I had no problem.

I eventually reduced my big ring from 52 to a smaller one, as I almost never used my highest gears, you may consider that too. I mentioned that in my previous post.

Besides a new chain and cassette which I suggested earlier, Saddlesores is right, check your chainrings to see if they are badly worn too. And a different crank may be cheaper if they are.

One thing that is a very messy time consuming bit of maintenance that nobody ever does, but should do, is to remove your rear jockey wheels, clean them, and grease them before reassembly. The two are different have have different parts, so it is best to do one at a time to make sure you do not mix up the parts. Ask your mechanic what she or he thinks about that. I use some removable threadlocker on those two bolts when I reassemble.

I busted a bar end shifter cable last year, that cable had only been in use for four years, but somehow a galvanized cable got into my spares (I try to only buy stainless), I think the hand sweat corroded the cable and caused the failure. Take a very good look at your cables, you might want to replace some of them before the trip. Bar end shifters, stainless is best to avoid corrosion from hand sweat.

This is what your gearing would be like if you switch your 30 to 24, have 42 and 52 chainrings, and use a Sram 11/32 cassette (Shimano cassettes may have different teeth counts). This assumes your two most cross chained gears are not used, they are grayed out.
https://gear-calculator.com/?
GR=DERS&KB=24,42,52&RZ=11,12,14,16,18,21,26,32&UF=2204&TF=72&SL=2.2&UN=MPH&DV=teeth

With your cursor, you can grab a chainring and slide it back and forth to the sides to see how it changes your gears. If you consider a different crank, that way you can see how the different chainring sizes affect your gearing. And you can see if you get a bunch of redundant gears.

If your seatpost has not been out of the bike for a few years, remove it and grease it to prevent dissimilar metal corrosion. That also reduces or prevents rain water from getting inside the bike tubing from that point.

Have a great trip.

countrydirt

I bought the bike in April 2020 and have ridden it recreationally over the past 2 years. It was in pretty pristine shape at that point. I keep it pretty clean and only ride it maybe twice a week as I spend more time on my MTB on single-track as I don't always have time for longer rides on the road. I'm due for a tune-up and will be talking to the LBS mechanic this weekend about the modifications as well as the other maintenance needed to get ready to go.

djb

An inexpensive crank change would be a square taper MTB triple. That with a new BB with the right length axle , lower the fd, would be easy to do. There are even new Shimano alivio I think, 42/32/22 for 50 bucks ish , so would lower gearing easily.
A good quality Shimano BB is 25, installation of this stuff is fast and easy, friction shifting easy. Existing fd probably will work, but if not a 30 buck fd will do the job.

Myself and others have toured a lot on these MTB triple and they work great with a load, especially in up and down terrain.
I love this setup for loaded touring.

Look into this option.

stevepusser

Probably the easiest Sierra crossing is further north at 6700' Yuba Pass on Hwy 49. If you do that, I'd suggest then heading south on 89 to hit Hwy 50 in South Lake Tahoe. Missing Lake Tahoe when you're so close would be a shame.

kevmcd

I am a big fan of Amtrak bicycle trips. I'm retired, too, and pretty much all my trips involve lots of Amtraking and bicycling only the choice parts.

If it were me I would fly into Santa Rosa with my bike and from there it is an easy ride to Sebastopol. Leaving Sebastopol it is a beautiful open road in several directions with lots of opportunities to get on and off the train.

countrydirt

Well, adjusting to retirement, having my out of town sons visit for a couple of weeks and moving into a new house sort of put the extended touring plan on hold until 2023. But, I'm working with the owner and a great mechanic at the LBS and we are changing out the front crank to a 44-32-22 on the 520. She'll be walking me through it step by step and I'll be doing the work in their shop. Now that summer is over (kids back to school, festivals and fairs done) things are relatively quiet there, so they have time and patience to deal with me.

In the meantime, I'm riding a lot of single track, volunteering with a local legal organization and playing the guitar and mandolin more than I have in years.

djb

That's awfully nice of them to do that for \with you. It will be a great learning experience, and you'll see, it's pretty easy to pick up.
When you ride this bike loaded with this setup, you're going to find it to be very useful and particularly suited to a heavy bike.

countrydirt

The crank is on the bike and I've taken a few shortish rides on the bike to test it out. I also added a new Brooks B-17, so have a bit of break in riding to do, but so far it is feeling pretty good. I put my old B-17 on my MTB and that totally changed the comfort of that bike, so I didn't want to take it off.

I'm going to put my front rack back on the 520 and use it for grocery runs and errands this fall/winter. Fortunately I live in an area with pretty mild fall and winter so riding most days is doable. I'm going to do a couple of single overnight camping trips to our nearby reservoir and some NFS campgrounds within 30 miles to try out some of my gear this fall and to get an idea of how this bike will handle loaded.