L134 

So, along those lines, go indexed in the rear and friction up front? In friction mode, cranks are pretty immune to any "speed" issues, shift well and, in my experience, more quickly than indexed. Almost all my cranks are 40-50 year old triples (5 speed??) with 9 speed cassettes. Once dialed in they shift beautifully even when stretched beyond the published specs. Stay away from sculpted cages of modern derailleurs for maximum flexibility in which chainrings you choose.

Oops, somebody already suggested.

L134 

It is NOT about the retro thing. It is all about it works very well, especially for touring, is cheap, and is flexible. How many questions in the forums do you see asking can I do this with that or the other thing? 90% of those questions go away if you are in friction mode. For me, that is a HUGE plus. Whether or not it is "retro" is irrelevant.

Yan 

Microshift makes indexed bar end shifters that are compatible with the major brands. I use one with a SRAM mountain derailleur.

djb

I get it, totally get the cheap, flexible aspect of stuff working, it's just not my preference.
Would I try it again with some sort of mix and match setup, sure maybe.

there clearly is a group of young riders who think it is a cool retro thing to do, at least what I have seen here in Montreal.

HTupolev

In the context of bar-end rear shifting on a modern drivetrain, one reason to go friction is that it often requires less force to get the shifter to move. Sometimes this means that you can do light-action pinky shifting, where an indexed setup might require a bit more hand maneuvering to be easy and comfortable to operate. That's why I keep my gravel bike's rear shifter set to friction mode, even though it's able to index that drivetrain. But, either way works.

schnee

I'm not going with friction shifting.
I know enough about these forums to know that it probably won't stop the discussion about it, but here's hoping it works!

djb

who knows, you might be able to keep your sti shifters with whatever improvisational thing you come up with. Seems to me the issue is just getting the crankset smaller, who knows, maybe. you could just do crankset stuff and keep the nice 10 speed 11-30 you have at the rear end.
On my 50/39/26 bike, I have the 9 speed 12-27 and the ten speed 11-30 has pretty much the same steps, really nice for fast riding.
The Deore 48/36/26 may seem like a clunker compared to the Ultegra, but its a nice setup for a wide range of riding speeds, and its also easy to put a 24 or 22 on the inner ring, but then you get into front derailleur shinanigans possibly with your fd and shifters--again, details for the mechanic to tell you about.

and of course throughout all of this is how much money do you want to throw at this, and also figuring what riding. you'll be doing with bike, so maybe not too, too undergeared if you'll still be doing unloaded fast riding.....

fun and games of options.
Oh, have you ever heard of gevenalle shifters? I like mine, not as fast as sti's, but less clunky than bar end shifters--why I set up my touring bike with them, wanting simple but not sti's for the trips I like doing.

robow

Did anyone mention a Sugino XD600 crankset, 46 36 26 ? I know it says 9 speed compatible but the chainrings don't know any better and I've been running it with 10 speed STI shifters and groupset forever. It is well made and nicely polished but pricey when new anymore. And as djb stated above, it will accept a 24 chainring cheaply and easily for even a lower low.

djb

if Mr Schnee (or Mrs) has a thing against square taper bb, that could be a problem, but yes, that range of crankset is really nice, still big enough chainrings for fast riding, but the ability to have a nice low granny and you can keep your nice tight cassette.
The Deore trekking crankset 48/36/26 uses Hollowtech 2 bb, outboard.
I use both bb's and while the hollowtech outboard works great, my square tapers work fine too.

MarcusT

That's odd. the OP states it has a 42T capacity

KC8QVO

I understand the OP's point about no friction shifters.

However, here is some food for thought:
Several years ago I upgraded my drivetrain with a Mountain Tamer Triple to convert my triple crank set to a quad. I do run heavy at times and have used the low gear quite a bit. It makes a huge difference. I want to say the smallest chain ring I have for it is around 11t. I would have to check that. If you do a search here for the Mountain Tamer Triple with my username you should find some threads referring to it with some pictures. I did change the bottom bracket to a Phil Wood of a wider dimension. I balanced the width so the extra I needed on the drive side for the Mountain Tamer Triple to be positioned best was balanced with the non-drive side so the cranks are symmetrical side to side, but I don't think a few mm difference shift would be much to notice.

I don't think the Mountain Tamer Triple's can be bought new anymore, but you may still be able to find them out there.

Of course, this is an "outside the box" idea that would require some unconventional setting up. So the comment earlier about finding a bicycle tech willing and able to do such, if you are not capable or willing yourself to do it, might be a challenge.

Good luck in what ever direction you go.

Xavier65

@schnee, Ignore derailleur capacity (except that the larger the better).
Get a triple chainring that permits swapping out the small ring for a 24T or 26T (whilst keeping the 42T+52T).
Get a rear cassette (7-9speed) with about a 36T large cog, and 11-13T small.
Get a new long chain (appropriate too), and size it big/big so it's very tight, but not so tight it's damaging anything. Cater for any potential rearward rear wheel adjustment.
You now have reasonably wide ratio gearing - best with indexed shifters.
NB With the 24T you can use only the larger half of the cassette (otherwise suffering hook-up and/or loose/jumping chain). With the 52T you should avoid the large 36T cog.

This approach has worked well for me for a couple of decades.

djb

Re details.
a bunch of years ago, tiagra stuff went to ten speed, their redesigned 50/39/30 changed the BCD to whatever that like yours, limits the small chainring to 30t.
My FSA triple BCD allowed me to go to 26, so made it "relatively" easy for the change ( the 26 ring I got had to be shimmed out a mm or so from the bolt holes due to the shape of things--but I figured this out on my own.
I mention this because often bike stores don't want to get into non standard stuff because it increases time and being sure something works perfectly, they don't want to deal with charging unhappy client for more time and or complaining client about a little niggle--and I get that. Time is money for a working shop. Going official is the best route for them, guaranteed results and no complaining customer.

t2p

yikes - 30/42/52 triple - basically all the disadvantages of a triple and none of the advantages

mrs t2p bike has a 48/36/26 triple which is better - but still not great ... the middle ring is still too large for hilly territory so she is (too) often forced to shift to the small ring ... even after I swapped the OEM 11-26 cassette with a 11-28 cassette

timdow

This is an excellent crankset that I have used for this exact purpose: To gear down a 130 BCD crankset (to 110 BCD). I also had to change the front derailleur though.

That was on a 9-speed bike. Robow seems to have had good luck with it on a 10-speed bike.

Question: Is Ultegra too finicky to shift it? I believe the Sugino is not ramped or pinned, and the ring spacing is slightly different(?)
.

cyccommute 

A Hollowtech II 9 speed mountain crank will work with your road bike. You may need to get a mountain bearing which is longer and you will have to use 5mm of spacers. Mountain bottom brackets for 9 speeds come in 68 or 73mm widths and the crank is designed for both. You just put spacers in to make it the right width. You will need a mountain bike external bearing set which has longer threads to accommodate the width of the spindle. You won’t need to worry about the 9speed/10speed issue with the chainring teeth as the internal width of the chain is the same between 9 and 10 speed chains. Only the outer plates are thinner to accommodate the narrow spacing of the cassette. The crank uses the same width in both speeds.

The chainline on a mountain bike crank is wider than road cranks. To make the crank work, you’ll need to remove most…if not all…of the spacers on the drive side to move the crank inboard far enough for the road derailer to work. Put the spacers on the nondrive side.

There’s no issue with shifting other than needing to move the crank inboard. I have a couple of these set ups and they shift just fine with STI shifters. You will need to use a road front derailer just like you have now. You can use the same one you have, although I have found that Shimano’s cheaper fronts (Tiagra and below) work better than Shimano’s more expensive offerings.

One further point: you can go to nearly silly levels of gearing if you put a 20 tooth inner ring on the mountain crank. It’s necessary to do a bit of surgery on the smallest bolt circle with a file but it can be done.

schnee

Fantastic information, thank you. That covers all the gaps in knowledge I had. I'm still pretty strong, and I don't see ever going the '50kg of gear' route with touring, so bumping it all down a few teeth may be all I need.

As far as the width, I already use spacers for my pedals, because I have child-bearing hips - when I got a professional fitting with lasers and all that, the coach said 'congrats, you're the biggest hips I've measured'. So, I don't think that will cause any issues.

This is probably were I'll go first - I have a few leads already. I'm sure my mechanic and I can scare one up pretty cheap.

robow

I have run the Sugino xd600 with both Ultegra and Tiagra 10 speed shifters with no problems. I'm currently running it with Tiagra 10 speed shifters only because they have built in barrel adjusters.

Tourist in MSN

My light touring bike and medium touring bike have road triple cranks that used to be 52/42/30, that was a standard size for a Campy road triple in the square taper days.

I swapped out the 30 tooth granny gear for a 24 (6 fewer teeth) and swapped out the big ring for a 46 (also 6 fewer teeth), so the rear derailleur and cassette play happy with that setup. The front derailleur is for a double, not triple, so not any weird shapes to it. And I use a friction front shifter (bar end).

I have no idea if alternate chainrings are available for your crank or not. Mine is now half step with an eight speed 11/32 cassette, which I like. You would probably prefer a smaller middle ring too.

My gearing is like this, I avoid the two most cross chained gears per chainring, thus only use 18 of 24 possible gears:
https://gear-calculator.com/?GR=DERS...N=MPH&DV=teeth



A chain catcher might come in handy too. I put one on without even wondering if it was worth it.

djb

re chainring sizes, there are different points of views on things, but here are some thoughts on the different cranksets that I ride on.

50/39/26. fun on my "fast bike", a similar bike to yours, and with a certain amount of stuff on the bike this works well, best with a light load and fun to ride fast (well, fast for me, its all relative) I really like the tight ish 12-27 9 spd cassette on it, very similar to your 11-30t ten speed. Still over geared for when carrying more stuff, and really the 50t ring is overkill for touring.

44/32/22 This 9 speed era mountain bike crank is on my main touring bike, a drop bar bike that Ive done lots of four panniers + tours on, and lighter bikepacking stuff. A pretty standard 11-34 on it which gives a wide range set of gears that can handle just about any touring situation I have run into. This works great for touring, and I dont mind the 44 big ring, even with my 26in wheels (so lower gearing compared to a 700 wheeled bike) but sometimes you have to shift between the 32 and 44 more often than a bigger mid ring, but hey, its got super low gearing that I never regret having even if I dont usually need it. I was just riding in Scotland and was very happy having my low low gears, both on road and off road. I never weighed my bike in bikepacking mode there, nor with four panniers (I did both) but in both setups, the mtb triple was still a fine option for this bike and me getting old.

42/34/24 a really cheap crankset on my nothing special old 7 speed commuter bike, 700 wheels, but the main reason I mention it is because the 34t mid ring on a 700 bike gives a really nice real world range of gears , so a 36 midring would be really great on a bike like yours, ie often going at a reasonable cruising speed up to 30kph, and then of course having a 40-whatever big ring is always there for when you can hold faster speeds or thereabouts with tailwinds, slight downhills etc.

in any case, get back with your options and or what you end up doing, always fun to see what people come up with.
a lot of us are pretty big bike/gearing nerds and come on here for fun discussions about stuff, so it will be fun to see what possibilities you get presented with from your mechanic folks.

venturi95

I am using a Stronglight branded version of the XD600. I have an IRD triple specific front derailleur, it worked pretty good at first, but I have bent it a little to make the whole front cage narrower (not recommended for the novice, the front derailleur cage is very strong). Now it works really great. I am running a 24 38 48 front rings, and I can almost always shift up from the 24 with a single sweep of the shifter. On my previous triples I used OctaLink era Ultegra cranks with a 24 inner. Shifting up from the 24 required one full sweep of the shifter and then a little more push inward on the shifter to complete the shift to the middle ring. Not perfect, but totally fine for touring. Shimano 105 5703 levers used throughout.
I like a 24-36 first gear. I never go much over 25 pounds of paraphernalia. I'm in good (not great) shape, I'm old (65), and I'm around 180 pounds (20 pounds too heavy). I am in love with my 30 speed drivetrains. They are absolutely luxurious. One chainring for any sort of road riding seems idiotic to me, touring or not, but I bet a 1 by group for the road is coming soon.

schnee

[QUOTE=djb;23015883]re chainring sizes, there are different points of views on things, but here are some thoughts on the different cranksets that I ride on.

50/39/26. fun on my "fast bike", a similar bike to yours, and with a certain amount of stuff on the bike this works well, best with a light load and fun to ride fast (well, fast for me, its all relative) I really like the tight ish 12-27 9 spd cassette on it, very similar to your 11-30t ten speed. Still over geared for when carrying more stuff, and really the 50t ring is overkill for touring.

.../QUOTE]

Yeah, I'll definitely follow through with whatever comes out of it.

It might be a while, things happen pretty slowly here in Sweden - the general pace is slower, and getting anything that's not 'off the shelf' takes longer to get shipped, processed, etc. - and I'm not in a huge rush.

But, this is definitely a 'do it all' bike. For example, when I went to Turkey, I did a day trip from Istanbul along the Bospur to the Black Sea with another rider I met there. I was strong as hell at the time, and I used the 52t quite a bit in the rolling hills and it was fun.

So, I'm leaning towards keeping it a 'light tourer / sometimes gravel / sometimes road' setup rather than 'haul 60kg + my clydesdale ass up anything'.

djb

[QUOTE=schnee;23016133]in that case, I wouldnt recommend a mountain bike triple, you would most likely find it too low overall.
A smaller triple with a much smaller inner ring would be nice, plus if the mid ring and large ring are smaller than what you have now, it wouldn't really impact your riding in my opinion.

To back up that statement, my 50/12 and 700 wheel top gear combination gives a gear inch number of about 112 g.i. (doesnt matter if you arent familiar with gear inches, its just a number that can be used to compare different gear options) and I can spin this bike up to a bit over 70kph on down hills, and have ample ample gearing to pedal comfortably at 50k or whatever, which we rarely are able to hold for a long time anyway.

on your bike, if you used a 48/36/26 and a 11-34, your high gear would be nearly 118 g.i. with 32mm tires, so even a higher gear than my bike.
presently with the 52/42/30 and 11-30 it has a high gear of over 127 g.i which from my experience as someone who loves going fast downhills, really isnt useable unless you are a world tour rider or in a peloton.
All the times I have ridden down big hills at 80, 90kph, I was way past my gearing anyway, so not really an issue. Headwinds on a downhill always slow us down like crazy anyway, and frankly, the times we get to go down super downhills are rare.

My touring bike's top gear is 44/11 with 26in wheels gives about 103 g.i. and I spin out at about 50k, but can still comfortably pedal at 40k when touring with weight on the bike, but again, its quite rare that I can hold 40kph, but its not a problem if I do.

I am however a slightly built guy (skinny) so more of a spinner and not particularly strong, less so with age, so really big gears don't work for me and my legs prefer a faster cadence.

If these boring numbers don't interest you at all, thats fine, I just learned over 30 years ago from a bike store owner about this so I could understand about getting lower gears on my then touring bike, and it is handy to have an actual number to compare to what you have, and to think how many equivalent lower gears you would like to have, especially if you can recall real life situations as examples.

you will notice that in the gearing chart I put of your bike as it is presently, I couldnt find a 11-30 ten speed cassette, so just put in an eleven speed 11-30 to have the right numbers.
Also, your present rear derailleur might be able to take a 34 cassette, sometimes they can take a bit more than officially stated, but maybe your mechanic can tell you this, or not if he or she wants to be "official"

hope this doesnt bore you to tears. My wife and friends have no interest in this, but it is a way to have an exact answer about gearing changes to compare possibilities to what you presently have.

djb

another excellent gear calculator, you can easily change stuff and add another bike to compare visually too
https://www.ritzelrechner.de/

and your bike with a 12-30 and present chain rings

L134 

So many essentially duplicate gears!