curiousabe

So i recently got my first road bike, a beautiful vintage steel de visini in red chromovelato. Took it for a 2 hour ride yesterday and concluded that the 52/42 chainrings with 5 speed 12/23 (or maybe it was 13/22) gearing is way too high for me, climbing hills was simply killing me.

Did some research yesterday and the chainrings for the campagnolo victory/triomphe seem to be 116mm BCD. Also managed to find some chainrings in various sizes.

What would be the best size inner ring to change to in order to make it both (a lot ) easier to climb hills but still make it work smoothly with the derailleurs and such?

• Would 52/36 be too much of a jump?
• What can the Max difference of the cigs be for the two chainrings?
• Do you suggest any other ratio? On my commute there are quite a few nasty hills

sced

You definitely should post your questions on the Classic and Vintage sub-forum https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vintage/

curiousabe

Thanks, hadn't seen that that forum existed, will re-post there! Mod cab delte thread

JohnDThompson 

Yes, Victory uses 116mm BCD; 35T is the smallest that will mount on that bolt circle.

The Victory rear derailleur came in either a short cage or a long cage version. The long cage version could likely wrap enough chain for that wide a spread. I doubt that the short cage version could, unless perhaps you were running a straight-block cluster. Front derailleur would probably be ok.

You could use a smaller tooth count on the big ring to reduce the amount of chain that needs to be wrapped, if you don't mind losing the high-end gears.