Don't neglect the influence of tire size. Chubby 700c tires can be +/-28" in dia, and skinny 26" actually less than 26".
You mention a 9 speed cassette with an 11 smallest cog. If it's the popular 11-34, your choice of 30/42 chainrings is sound. For general purpose riding unloaded, having a low gear less than 1:1 will get most of us up most hills. A lower gear is useful for loaded touring or steep off-roading. What others have mentioned about 70"-75" gears being most used has also been my experience. In the middle of my cassette are 55" to 75" gears, and those handle probably 90% of my riding on the outer ring. dougP On Wednesday, August 13, 2014 10:06:27 PM UTC-7, lungimsam wrote: > > Where are you supposed to cruise on your front rings and rear cassette if > you have a cc? In the big ring while in the middle of the cassette? > > If so, then according to the Sheldon calculator, based on my cruising area > of my XD2 triple/9-speed cassette setup's gear inches, I would need a 30/42 > compact crankset to cruise in the middle area of the big ring of a cc and > then use the 30 ring for me little gears. Staying in the big one would > minimize front shifting, too. I don't need more than 100 inches, so 42 x 11 > would be fine as my big inches combo. I don't think I would spin out of it. > > Is this how I should do it? Just wundrin' if I ever want to give it a try. > I had a used bike once with a 34-50/ 12-28 (I think) that didn't work well > because I had to live on the small ring, and still didn't have anything > small enough for the steep stuff. > > Where do you cruise in your cc setup? > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
