Double chainset for touring

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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barbelfisher
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Joined: 5 Sep 2009, 6:54pm

Double chainset for touring

Post by barbelfisher »

I would like some advice please on Gearing for a MIstral tourer I am building, I have a Regina 14-28 rear 5 speed block and would like to stay with a double chainset, What would be an Ideal ratio for the double obviously a 52/42 would not give me enough low gears. My riding would not be carrying heavy goods but more than credit card touring and I would have some reasonable hill climbs.
snibgo
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by snibgo »

I suggest 26 and 52 would be good (if a mech can handle this).

You can play with possibilities graphically: http://www.gear-calculator.com/#KB=26,5 ... 130&SL=2.5
tatanab
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by tatanab »

barbelfisher wrote:What would be an Ideal ratio for the double.

Ideal for you, or ideal for me? Gearing is a personal choice.

However, from other postings of yours I take it that you are trying to build something reasonably period correct. At that time (I had a Mistral through the mid 70s) many of us would have used 48/36 which is pretty close to the modern trendy term "a compact".
wallyone
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by wallyone »

Hi
As Tatanab says a 48/36 was a common mix but 52/36 was also fairly common however personally I found this to be too high and front mechs that could cover this jump could be tricky to find. While I used 48/36 for many years for several long distance tours (still do on a road bike) I settled on 42/32 as a more comfortable option when camping. Which I suppose is what most tourists do, find out what is comfortable through trial and error.
Malaconotus
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by Malaconotus »

With only a 28 on the back, I'd want the inner as small as possible and the outer as big a jump as the mech can handle. 42/24?
Big T
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by Big T »

I don't think you need a large outer ring. i would use something like 42/30 or even smaller inner, if I could get it. I have a 52/39/30 triple on my audax bike and regularly use 30/27 on some of the hills near where I live, and that's unloaded. Hardly ever use the 52 ring.
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Ivor Tingting
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by Ivor Tingting »

It all depends on the terrain you intend riding, the weight of luggage you anticipate carrying and your cycling ability. Some one's idea of a hill might not even be a pimple to another and vice versa. I suggest you go on a test ride/tour with your bike geared as it is, carrying the luggage you expect to take and see how you get on, then make changes accordingly otherwise you could be peeing in the wind.
"Zat is ze reel prowoking qwestion Mr Paxman." - Peer Steinbruck, German Finance Minister 31/03/2009.
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Mick F
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by Mick F »

I had a 36/52 when I was a "double" for touring. I did JOGLE with four fully-loaded panniers in 1994 with it and a 13/28 freewheel.

Front mech was a Campag Victory Leisure.
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Big T
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by Big T »

I did a 2 week Tour of the Alps with a single 36 front ring and a 14-28 freewheel. I had a large saddlebag and a handlebar bag. I was never overgeared on the climbs and never undergeared on the flat. I even jumped on the back of a moped in Switzerland and rode motor-paced for a couple of miles!
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Jonboy
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by Jonboy »

I have 30,38, 50 front; 11-34 rear. I have never used the inner chain ring despite having ridden two fully loaded tours, Calais to the Med and LEJOG.
If I were building the bike again from scratch I would just have a double.
mullinsm
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by mullinsm »

Jonboy wrote:I have 30,38, 50 front; 11-34 rear. I have never used the inner chain ring despite having ridden two fully loaded tours, Calais to the Med and LEJOG.
If I were building the bike again from scratch I would just have a double.


Conversely, I recently did a 4 day tour with only a light load and found that even the 26 front 28 rear combo was too high for some hills and have just changed to mountain bike gearing to give me 22/34 for loaded touring. It depends on what your natural cadence is as much as strength - just watch any pelethon and you'll see different riders pedaling at different speeds to achieve the same road speed - the answer is, as the post above says, trial and error to find what works well for you.
uphillbothways
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by uphillbothways »

Jonboy wrote:I have 30,38, 50 front; 11-34 rear. I have never used the inner chain ring despite having ridden two fully loaded tours, Calais to the Med and LEJOG.
If I were building the bike again from scratch I would just have a double.


I replaced a 30/39/50 triple with a 44/32/22 because I never used the big ring. My natural cadence is well in excess of 90rpm and I never stand up to climb. I'd wager that you're a "masher" and prefer a higher gear and lower cadence. It's horses for courses, but in my experience it's very rare indeed that people want higher gears, but very common for them to want lower ones. If you run out at the high end you just spin out (or more often coast downhill), but if you run out at the low end you have to get off and push.
rbe
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by rbe »

This will be a reactionary view on my part, since the experience it is based upon is from my cycling heyday - and nothing within the past twenty years.

That said, I have the opinion that - for touring - (e.g., not for racing nor for in-your-face club rides) an effective and comfortable gear-range is OPTIMALLY to be achieved with a two-chainring setup. What's more, I don't think anything worthwhile is gained from multi-sprocket cassettes compared to the old five-sprocket freewheel clusters. IMO folks who push high gears for the sake of maximizing speed are necessarily young and/or strong - and unlikely to be primarily interested in touring.

My view is that touring cyclists (anyway, I) wish to maintain a comfortable pedal rpm at all times. The fact that what is comfortable may vary from individual to individual does NOT alter that. I, long ago - even when young and relatively fit - determined that going up major hills was just part of the experience (i.e., not the whole point, nor even the primary one). I was content to be able to NOT dismount and walk. The fact that - if the hill was very steep - walking might have been faster was not an issue. My goal was to be able to ride the bike anywhere -not to cover ground as fast as possible (see previous paragraph).

So, I want the lowest low-gear attainable for any hill perceived to be one whereon I can not maintain that 'comfortable pedal rpm'. And then I drop into that low gear and procede at a pace just sufficient to keep balanced. For THAT, clearly, only ONE gear is needed.

But at all other times wind direction, road surface condition and slope (either gradually uphill or downhill) make for a desire for a wider selection of gears.

Most of us, I think, understand that having '18 (or 21, 24, 27) gears' on a bike is a marketing tool aimed at selling the newest, most improved, gaudiest thing. MOST of those gears will be either duplicated (or virtually so) elsewhere throughout the range or practically unusable due to extreme chain-angle. And shifting through them sequentially would involve multiple 'double-lever' moves (e.g., a chainwheel shift AND a freewheel/cassette sprocket shift).

Again, my view is that what is wanted is a useable range of gears to cover cycling conditions from steep, seemingly- endless, hills to smooth, gently-downhill, wind-at-your-back stretches. Furthermore, I wish to make up-shifts in relatively smaller increments (say, 9 to 11 inches) so that there is no sense of sudden loss of comfortable pedaling - while downshifts may be more profitable when slightly larger incrementally (when I'm downshifting it's because I WANT to feel a significant release from the need to push. And, I NEVER want to need two lever-moves to accomplish these changes.

I have found that an ideal spacing set-up, as above, requires no more than seven (possibly eight) different gear combinations with a few near-duplicates being actually useful in consideration of differrent up-shift versus down-shift sequences to avoid double-lever moves. I have such a set up on my 'ten-speed' road bike. I carry NO unused/unusable chainwheels or sprockets. The reactionary part of this opinion is that I believe my ten-speed road bike with its' chrome/moly, double-butted diamond touring frame fitted with high-quality down-tube shifters with wide-range derailleurs, side-pull brakes, and turned-down bars IS the best arrangement for pleasurable touring ever devised - recent innovations in frame materials, braking and gear systems notwithstanding.

robert
snibgo
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by snibgo »

I have great empathy with rbe's views, but would temper this with the observation that we all favour whatever we have found works well for us.

I have only ever toured on 3x6 gears. This work for me. The granny is for fighting hills or wind; the big ring powers me down hills or downwind; the middle ring is for ordinary Cambridgeshire conditions.

However, I discovered this year that Yorkshire hills have grown since I was younger, and a lower low gear would be useful. If I lived there, I would certainly change my setup.
chrisc
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Re: Double chainset for touring

Post by chrisc »

I discovered this year that Yorkshire hills have grown since I was younger


Very good point. Sad fact of life is that our physical prowess generally declines with the later years. I lived in my teens in County Durham and found 46x26 quite adequate for those pesky Pennine climbs, not a doddle mind, but generally very low gears were unobtainable anyway IIRC, so we 'made do', in my case with a Campag 5spd 14-26. Would not consider it today, now aged 66 ! My current steed has a bottom gear of 28x34 yielding a gear of about 22in and I still walk on occasion, typically when speed has dropped below about 4mph. It is no longer a matter of personal pride to ride up every hill ! I just don't care any more - a recurrent factor in my life these days.

So to answer the OP's question indirectly, it depends heavily on your own cycling ability and what kind of riding you plan to do but with a tourer it is unlikely that you would gear too low.
Tourer : 2010 Giant CRS City 4.0
Other : 1963 Denton retro (now back in the loft!)
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