steelbikeguy

that is a pretty cool bike!
It's a Rene Herse Demontable, using an early coupling method. Here's a shot of the whole bike (which was taken at a Classic Rendezvous gathering)



the other bike that I showed was also coupled, but with S&S couplers. Fortunately, that one is mine.



..and it's close to British Racing Green.

Steve in Peoria

Darth Lefty 

Even in free hubs, 36t only arrived with late 9 and 10 speed MTB systems. These joined with double fronts and 29er wheels. The double shift in the front was abandoned in favor of something more like a road compact double, just hang out in one ring til you need a bailout at one end or the other

Jeff Wills

SunTour made the "AG Tech" derailleur to work with their 14-38 tooth freewheel. It was stock on the Schwinn Sidewinders in 1982-83:
The Schwinn Sidewinder | 1982 to 1984 (bikehistory.org)

Jeff Wills

The other side of this is the "Mountain Tamer" triple and quadruple chainring setups. These use(d) Suntour freewheel cogs for chainrings, meaning your chainring could be as small as 17 teeth. Amazingly. you can still order a Mountain Tamer triple adapter from the original web page:
Mountain Tamer Chainring Adapters, Gorilla Brake Beefers, Gorilla Headlocks and more (abundantadventures.com)

jonwvara 

My experience has been that the AG rear derailleur always works with a 38-tooth cog--which makes sense, since Suntour made both. It's a heavy chunk of steel, but a couple of extra ounces on a loaded touring bike doesn't bother me. A Huret Duopar works in some cases, but sometimes won't quite handle the 38. That probably has to do with the length of the derailleur hanger, although I haven't really investigated that.

bikemig 

The Suntour XC sport can handle a max cog of 39 teeth according to velobase: VeloBase.com - Component: SunTour XC Sport 7000

I have one mounted to my 1982 Trek 720. It is a seriously long derailleur:

cyccommute 

To be honest, the reason that gearing stopped at 34 teeth maximum for the low gear on almost any gear system is because bicycle designers tend to be racers who don’t see the need for anything lower. It’s also cultural...we call those “granny” gears because only weak old grannies need them.

The advent of the 29er forced the designers hand because people suddenly found that a large wheel uncomfortably increased the size of the smallest gear. With a 22 tooth inner and a 54-622 tire, a 34 tooth low gives a 18.7 gear inch. That is really high for off-road. Going to a 36 tooth gear, decreases the gear to almost the same gear as a 54-559 tire with a 22/34 gear combination would give.

1x systems have enlarged the number of teeth on the low gear to almost ridiculous levels. But the gearing choices really haven’t changed all that much. From the factory, gears still stay within that 17” low range even with 50 tooth low gears on the cassette.

Frankly the issue boils down to a lack of imagination and not a small dose of machismo on the part of the designers.

I know it doesn’t show, but gearing has been a sore point with me since I started riding about 150 years ago.

repechage

We were all younger and stronger 30-40 years ago.

cyccommute 

I used Mountain Tamers 30 to 40 years ago. I was strong but not stupid.

jonwvara 

I beg your pardon! Thirty years ago I was at least as weak as I am now!
EDIT: Also, I was fatter.

pcb 

I don't think you're wrong about there being a strong streak of road-racer tendencies and blinders among production bike product managers, especially back in the day.

But what I'd say is back then the product mgr/designers didn't push for 34t+ in the rear because they thought that's what triple cranksets were for. Maybe many didn't think that "real" riders needed lower gearing, and maybe they referred disparagingly to "granny gears," but asking component mfrs for 34t+ rear cogs wouldn't even be on their radar when triples, at the time, were an accepted solution. Triples had been available for touring-oriented bikes for decades, they were a common solution for riders seeking lower gearing, and when the touring bike craze hit the US around the Bikecentenial days we saw triple-equipped touring bikes reach the US market.

I also think triples were a better technological solution to getting lower gears on a 120mm-spaced axle, which is how this thread started. Going 34t+ would require new rear derailleurs, possible freewheel modifications, would stress axles more and result in large gearing gaps when used with a double crank. This at a time when Shimano/Suntour/etc could sell the same derailleur models for several years without redesigns/modifications, so their wasn't much appetite at the component mfr side for wider rear freewheels.

The growing long-distance touring and mountain bike market gave the component mfrs a reason to go to 38t in the rear.

cyccommute 

You are partly right but also somewhat wrong. There have been attempts over time to make lower gears for bicycles, especially mountain bikes, but they seem to have always been foiled by various people. For a while Suntour was on the forefront of lowering gearing with the 38 tooth AG line as well as offering their MicroDrive cranks. The 94/56 BCD allowed for the use of an inner ring as small as 18 teeth. It was marvelous stuff and made riding up hills far more enjoyable.

However, no one really embraced the concepts and Suntour eventually lost out to Shimano who have a very distinct attitude that whatever low gears they offer is what people need. Even now with 52 tooth lows, they limit the gearing to about 17” which is the same low as they have had since the 90s with 22/34 gearing on 26” mountain bikes. I regularly push outside those limits but most people won’t.

The need for a new derailer depends on the derailer that zandoval (or anyone else) has on the bike. There were lots of derailers from the 120mm OLD era that had a 34 tooth capacity. Sometimes, especially with friction shifting, that can be pushed. A Wolftooth Roadlink can be added to increase the capacity of the derailer. I use one on my touring bike in order to use a 36 tooth cog with an XTR 8 speed rear that is only designed for 34 tooth gears.

That wasn’t the reason that manufacturers went to larger than 34 tooth lows on cassettes. Mountain biking had been around for almost 30 years before 36 tooth lows became widely available. The reason for going to lower lows had everything to do with the development of the 29er mountain bikes. Shortly after they were introduced, wider range cassettes became more available. 1x then pushed the cassettes to larger rear cogs.

noglider 

I agree with @cyccommute that it is because of lack of imagination. Perhaps the manufacturers don't perceive the demand, but I think people use whatever their lowest gear is, so the manufacturers might be very wrong about so-called demand.

pcb 

I'm trying to not get too wrapped up in all this.

In 1980 I could set up a touring bike with a 20.5" low gear: 26t TA Pro 5 Vis "Cyclotourist" triple front w/34t freewheel cog.
In 1981 I could sub in a Suntour AG 38t freewheel, for an 18.4" low gear.
By '82-'83 I could use a Sugino AT 110/74bcd triple with a 24t ring, for a 19.2" gear w/34t cog or 17.0" w/38t.

I was selling touring bikes back then, and my customers weren't complaining that gearing options weren't low enough. We didn't sell many/any 38t AG rigs, because they were ungodly heavy, and the gear gaps were unacceptably large.

Into the early '80s, emphasizing triples and smaller chainrings instead of 34t+ cogs for a lower gear solution wasn't a lack of imagination, it was because larger cogs with 5-6spd freewheels meant:
1. Large gearing gaps, which consumers didn't like
2. Significantly more axle/drivetrain stress; we were already seeing increased bent rear axles on 34t touring rigs, which consumers didn't like
3. New derailleurs were required. At a manufacturing level, selling hundreds of thousands of units, "maybe pushing a 34t-rated rder to shift a larger cog" doesn't work. Road Links didn't exist. It was difficult to justify the development/production costs for a new rear derailleur that wouldn't solve problems #1/#2 above. Suntour tried with the AG, and it didn't sell well, at least in the IBD market.

So into the early '80s, gearing was already acceptably low using triple cranks with a smaller inner ring. I say "acceptably" because consumers weren't telling dealers gearing was too high, and dealers weren't telling mfrs gearing was too high.

Consumer demand for even lower gears, in the kind of numbers that drive profitable manufacturing, did increase with the introduction of ATBs.

The response? In the early '90s, as ATBs took over much of the market, Suntour offered 94-56bcd cranks (18t min) and Shimano did 94-58 (20t min). A 20f/34r is a 15" gear.

And stronger cassette hubs/axles were introduced, along with cassettes with more cogs, and larger max cogs, and frames got wider to accommodate the hubs/cogs.

And along with that we also saw new ATB rders going into production, with longer cages rated for 38t/39t rear cogs.

I'll admit I'm biased from having been in the bike biz. But I saw the trends being spotted, how products were developed, and why certain things were possible and others weren't.

It wasn't lack of imagination, it wasn't ignoring or not perceiving demand, and nobody was interfering with the development of lower gears.

That's not to say such things can't happen. But I don't think that was the case with figuring out how to get lower gears on bicycles.

Jeff Wills

Hmmm... at the 16 to 18 gear inch range, pedaling is about as fast as getting off and pushing. Most bikes are difficult to control at speeds lower than that. It's a skillful rider who can use gears that low, but most people will give up in frustration.

cyccommute 

A 20/36 gear on a 700C wheel at 90rpm gives a speed of 4mph. That’s a bit faster than walking. At a slower cadence it’s around 3mph. But even at 3mph, riding beats walking. A 20/36 is a lot lower than most available gearing which is 22/34.

Sierra

I'm curious what front derailleur could handle those quad setups.
I put a TA 26/36/46/56 quad together just because I could, but I don't know of a front derailleur that could handle it.

noglider 

@pcb, thanks for reminding us of all those facts. You are quite right in all of what you say. Retrospect is unfair when we say, "Why didn't we invent the stuff we now have?" It forgets the process we used to come up with the stuff we now have.

cyccommute 

When I used a quad, I used Suntour Mountech. I think I even used a high normal Suntour...IMO the best front derailer every designed. It was friction, of course.

Jeff Wills

Ditto. Making all the shifts happen was a combination of the right derailleur, right length bottom bracket, proper adjustment, and a little voodoo.

noglider 

You're giving me ideas! I've been ruminating with the idea of a friction-shifted (maybe down tube) front derailleur with my indexed-shifted. Indexing a front derailleur is dumb. And I happen to have a high-normal SunTour FD. I loved those things, too.