Why have a triple?

[Tiberius]

I bought an 11-34 10sp XT cassette to go with my Shimano 105 triple chainset. I just swapped the 11T for an old Tiagra 12T I'd kept. I think new ones can be picked up fairly cheaply.

Could you please tell me, what rear mech' are you using ??

Thank you.

It’s a 9sp Shimano XT ‘Shadow’. The model is M772.

Edit: the above does not have a barrel adjuster. I fitted an inline Jagwire adjuster.

Thank you......Appreciated......

[pwa]

If you are using STI gear levers you are limited to the choice the manufacturer gives you. But if you are using bar end / down tube levers with non-indexed front shifting you can make good use of any triple you can get a mech for. My tourer has a smallest ring of 26 and a largest of 48. Try that with a double. The largest sprocket is 32. Okay, I could in theory go for a bigger sprocket and increase the steps between gears so that.......what? Can't think what I would gain by doing that. My front shifts always produce a moderate step in gear ratio, and rear shifts give nice small steps. The range is ideal.

[foxyrider]

Currently I only run one triple, a self build Campag 52/39/26 with an 11-29 10 speed self assembled cassette on my Airnimal. My other regular use bikes have compact 50/34 with 12-28 (11sp) or 12-29 (10sp). (well the carbon thing has 11sp 52/34 x 11-28 but that's a red herring here)

The 26 ring gets used once in a blue moon unless i'm in the mountains loaded, otherwise i'm in the 52 most of the time running halfway across the cassette. The 39 does the less strenuous uphills. The franken cassette is 11,12,13,15,17,19,21,23,26,29. I would probably drop 2 teeth on each chainring if I was on 700c wheels.

I had triples on more bikes but I found that all that happened was I used lower and lower gears, got slower and slower and wasted energy over revving to keep some road speed. I'm generally putting out an estimated 130 watts most of the time, i'm certainly not super fit or strong these days.

Credit card touring on the carbon beast around the Alps I had 52/34 x 11-27 which got me over everything without walking! (there were inclines in the high teens % wise as well as long 20km plus long)

[Brucey]

Fictitious.
Double 48/32
Cassette 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20, 23, 26, 30, 34.
Ranges from 24.7" to 114.5"
Screen Shot 2017-11-11 at 14.07.19.png

well I dunno what size wheels you are using but those gears seem to suggest 20mm tyres on 700C rims or something.
Most people would find it a bit grim having all those sprockets and only having a choice of three gears between 55" and 75" (that or running cross-chained on the small ring) which is the most used range of gears for many riders. The 17-20 interval is ~18% which is huge, folk slag off IGHs for ratio gaps that big and you have two of them about that size in your chosen cassette.

I think a 28,39,50 chainset and a 12-34 cassette would be a much better set of gears; it has a comparable top gear (but doesn't use a stupid 11T sprocket to achieve it), has more useful gears for cruising that are closer together with better chainlines, and that use larger sprockets for better wear, has lower gears, no enormous doubleshift, and no enormous gaps in the climbing gears either. Comparison here;

http://www.gear-calculator.com/?GR=DERS&KB=32,48&RZ=11,12,13,15,17,20,23,26,30,34&UF=2125&TF=90&SL=2.6&UN=MPH&GR2=DERS&KB2=28,39,50&RZ2=12,14,16,18,20,22,24,27,30,34&UF2=2125

A triple setup like that would weigh about 100g more than the double and would be much nicer to use.

[keyboardmonkey]

Fictitious.
Double 48/32
Cassette 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20, 23, 26, 30, 34.
Ranges from 24.7" to 114.5"
Screen Shot 2017-11-11 at 14.07.19.png

well I dunno what size wheels you are using but those gears seem to suggest 20mm tyres on 700C rims or something...

I think a 28,39,50 chainset and a 12-34 cassette would be a much better set of gears; it has a comparable top gear (but doesn't use a stupid 11T sprocket to achieve it), has more useful gears for cruising that are closer together with better chainlines, and that use larger sprockets for better wear, has lower gears, no enormous doubleshift, and no enormous gaps in the climbing gears ...

A triple setup like that would weigh about 100g more than the double and would be much nicer to use.

Agreed. That’s pretty much what I have - my granny ring is a standard 30T but with the option to go lower with the Shimano 105 5703 chainset - and means I get to use the 50T chainring and 21T sprocket for my preferred cruising speed. Long live the triple!

[BigG]

Just a word of support for the now less common half-step system. Of my three bikes, the one with by far the largest gear range has an 8 x 3 gear set using 9-speed spacers on a 7-speed freehub. The 11-13-16-19-23-28-34-41 range with a 41 tooth middle ring gives me almost all of the gears I need in normal riding. The gaps will seem large to some but on the undulating Devon lanes they are fine - and I always have the option of the half-step when I feel the need for something in between. This happens less frequently than might be imagined and only in the middle of the range. At the extreme top end and over a wider range at the bottom end the cassette gaps are close to ideal thus avoiding the worst chainlines (although they are not too bad with a 7-speed cassette width). My 80 years compels me to add a granny ring - 19 tooth currently although 23 tooth would be low enough for the moment - but this is only used on the four or five largest sprockets at a point in the overall gear range at which the 20% gaps are about right.

[Brucey]

Just a word of support for the now less common half-step system. Of my three bikes, the one with by far the largest gear range has an 8 x 3 gear set using 9-speed spacers on a 7-speed freehub. The 11-13-16-19-23-28-34-41 range with a 41 tooth middle ring gives me almost all of the gears I need in normal riding....

a 23-41-45 with that cassette's ratios are shown here

http://www.gear-calculator.com/?GR=DERS&KB=23,41,45&RZ=11,13,16,19,23,28,34,41&UF=2185&TF=90&SL=2.6&UN=MPH

It is not a bad looking system. There are lots of possibilities for stronger wheels using shorter freehub bodies, and you needn't be hamstring for gear range if you go about it in the right way.

Whilst large gear intervals don't suit everyone, I do know that you can get used to it BTW; I do a lot of riding on a machine with widely spaced gears and it isn't terrible provided you are not in a blinding rush.

cheers

[The utility cyclist]

I use a triple on two bikes and doubles on the other four.
The triple on my daily is a 48/36/26 + 12-28 10 speed, I'm mostly on the 36 but I use the 48/12 regularly, more so than the bottom gear, I like the fact the ratios are relatively close together. I used a 12-25 in the Alps with the same triple 5 years ago but not loaded more than 5kg in bags, I was 95kg and my first time on long ascents,
I would never want to go to a 32t or bigger sprocket even if they increase it to 12 at the back because the jumps are still too big, I like to keep my cadence fairly tight, losing your rythym transitioning either onto a steeper bit or even increasing your speed can be a real bind whether that's racing,a weekend blast, commuting, utility or touring.

The other triple is on my do everything winter racer cum audax cum tourer, 50/39/24 + 11-28, this is more than ample gearing for pretty much everything I'd ever do.

The other bikes with doubles I won't have any load at all and less likely to be going up hills of any note though I'd maybe fit a 12-30 if was doing a fair bit more climbing but generally 11/12-28 is ample, the rings vary from 53/38, 50/36, 50/33, 48/28 (stronglight 86BCD), the latter is on a 50 year old machine mainly for pootling.

I most definitely need a triple but I like doubles too, I could never see a time that a 1x system would ever be a consideration, having to use a dinner plate cassette sprocket and have massive jumps to replicate the gear range on a triple/double is utterly ridiculous and inefficient.

All that said, I used to like the 6 speed hi-low freewheels, 14-16-18 with 24-26-28 though my Suntour road sprockets went to up to a 34T.

[meic]

Bringing a custom made 12-32 or 12-34 into the discussion in place of a cheap off the shelf 11-32 or 11-34 isnt relevant to the double v triple issue.
That is a quite different "thread", called is it worth paying twice the price to be rid of those steps in a 9 speed cassette.
Yes the 12-32 may give smaller steps on a triple than an 11-32 on a double but the 12-32 will give just as good steps on a double.

[Brucey]

....Yes the 12-32 may give smaller steps on a triple than an 11-32 on a double but the 12-32 will give just as good steps on a double.

yes but it won't give the range and the lack of a large double shift and the cruising gears as well, not all at the same time, anyway.

FWIW you may cry 'foul' at my use of a custom cassette as it costs double, but it only costs double the first time; the big sprockets don't wear out (if you are vaguely sensible) and in most cases you can get all the faster wearing sprockets by buying a single replacement cassette. For example this is a nice touring setup

http://www.gear-calculator.com/?GR=DERS&KB=24,36,46&RZ=13,15,17,19,21,23,25,28,32&UF=2185&TF=90&SL=2.6&UN=MPH

and uses mostly replacement sprockets from a 13-25 9s cassette, to which a 28 and 32T sprocket (salvaged from an old cassette) are added.

You could also get the same range etc from a triple that uses a standard cassette; I guess part of the reason why I chose the 12-32 cassette I did before was to show that apparently small changes can make appreciable differences.

cheers

[gloomyandy]

Each to their own, but I have no interest in using a triple. I like the shape and action of SRAM shifters and that I can use all 20 gears without issue or trimming on my 2x10 setups. Personally I think that gaps between gears and issues with chain lines are made too much of. I've not had any issue with either. My road bike has a standard "compact" chainset 50/34 with 11-28 cassette, my touring bike has 42/26 and 11-36. That combination has had me plus four panniers up the Bealach na Bà and many of the other roads on the West Coats of Scotland so I'm happy with it. I've not seen any worse chain wear or wear on the gears than I did on my previous touring bike (which had a triple).

[meic]

the big sprockets don't wear out (if you are vaguely sensible)

and live somewhere flat. My big sprockets always wear out even with a 26t inner ring.

[thelawnet]

Just musing .......................

I think that we have triple chainsets because in the old days of freewheels, we were limited to the max size of the big sprockets and the number of them too. This meant that we needed a triple chainset with smaller inner chainwheel to extend the gear range.

These days, there seems to be no limit to the sprockets sizes available, so I think a double would suffice. I know there are single 11sp systems out there, but there are chainline issues associated with them.

Why do we still have triples?

There are limits:

12-speed 10-50t (but hideously expensive and last gear is too big a jump)
11-speed 11-46t (but the Shimano sprocket choices are poor)
10-speed 11-42t (new, was 11-36t)
9-speed 11-36t

With a 3x10 for a MTB you can fit:

42/32/24 plus 11-42

This gives a range of 6.68

Or a 2x10
38/24 11-42 Giving a range of 6.05

IMO, 11-42t makes the triple somewhat obsolete.

However, the problem is that manufacturers are going directly to singles, for which 42/11 = 3.82 isn't close to enough.

[Mick F]

well I dunno what size wheels you are using but those gears seem to suggest 20mm tyres on 700C rims or something.

Rolling diameter of my rear 700c 23mm Rubino Pro Slick is 26.2mm at circa 120psi

IMO, 11-42t makes the triple somewhat obsolete.

I think that triples are obsolescent generally.

If I were to want to spend more dosh on my bikes, the triples would be sold and I'd buy doubles and wider cassettes. I don't agree about all this guff about steps and lack of gears between such and such. You pick a cassette with a few a gaps as you can get with due regard to the total range you want.

Give me a double system with a bottom gear of about 20" or so, and a top gear of 115" or so. 10sp is good, and maybe 11sp is better ......... but it all comes at a cost. I'm not willing to spend any more as I've spent enough, so they'll stay as they are.

[Brucey]

Rolling diameter of my rear 700c 23mm Rubino Pro Slick is 26.2mm at circa 120psi

for that to be the case the tyre must stand above the rim by about 20mm, which seems relatively little to me.

....If I were to want to spend more dosh on my bikes, the triples would be sold and I'd buy doubles and wider cassettes. I don't agree about all this guff about steps and lack of gears between such and such. You pick a cassette with a few a gaps as you can get with due regard to the total range you want.

Give me a double system with a bottom gear of about 20" or so, and a top gear of 115" or so....

well your earlier example of a good double setup contains a 17.6% interval. If you are happy with that sort of size interval then 12 well-chosen gears would be more than enough to give you a 20" to 115" range. I have ridden on such setups and it is OK if you are mentally adjusted to it but lots of people (including yourself, IIRC... ) say that such gaps (even smaller 14% gaps) are too big for them to maintain a uniform cadence.

Regarding your assertion that it is only money that is stopping you from ditching the triples and going to doubles, I'd ask with what object are you even considering such a move? Saving 100g weight?

cheers