"For me, a 50/34 left me riding cross-chained too often." If I had a 50/34 crank I think I would immediately swap the 34 for a 36. When I went from 53/42 to 53/39 it took a while to get used to the bigger jump with the with the 14 vs 11 tooth difference between rings. I doubt I could learn to like a 16t jump for a bike with "big" gears, and with the 36t and an 11-xx cassette I wouldn't spin out the small ring on easy spinning rolling rides whereas with the 34t I think that would be a problem. I also like the tight gearing the 1t cog jumps on the small part of the cassette give with a big enough small ring.
I currently ride a lot with a 46/30 set up, but i ride that like a 1x with bail out for serious climbing. That works great for a lot of things but for fast bunch rides and hamerhead pace lines I prefer tighter spaced cogs than I use with the 46/30. With the prevalence of 11-xx cassettes these days I think I would prefer a 50/36 crank to the 53/39 (similar gears to what I get with a 12-xx cassette). But for race oriented club rides I think the "real" 2x crank with a >48t big ring works best. Didn't Hinault write that "Eddie loved the 44 tooth ring"? On Sunday, January 1, 2017 at 9:15:06 AM UTC-8, Bill M. wrote: > > What about the 50/34 does not suit your needs? > > For me, a 50/34 left me riding cross-chained too often. I have since used > 46/30, 44/28 and 42/26 combinations that let me run on the big ring in the > middle of the cassette most of the time, with the small ring as a bail out > when I have to climb something steepish. That works much better for me. > > My rule of thumb: IIRC Eddie Merckx rode a 52 x 14 gear to set his hour > record - 100 inches spinning 100 RPM for 30 MPH. My current 'sportiest' > bike runs 44/28 x 12-28 for a 99 inch top gear. Your proposed 46 x 11 = > 113 inches is probably plenty (!) for most "casual" rides. > > Top gear doesn't matter much to me. When I was able to ride much more > aggressively, I had a Calfee with Campy, and to get a low enough bottom > gear for our steepest hills I was stuck with 50/34 x 13-29 gearing (didn't > want to spend the $ to go to 11 speed just to get a 12 on top). I did spin > out of that 104 inch top gear once in a while on descents, but at that > speed I would just tuck and coast and didn't really lose ground on the > group. I hated the 50/34 combo on the flats. > > Bill > > On Sunday, January 1, 2017 at 6:27:35 AM UTC-8, Call Me Jay wrote: >> >> It looks like 46-30 cranks are a favorable of RBW owners (I've reviewed >> the group archive). I'm interested in getting the insight of folks that >> are using them in moderately hilly terrain on an unloaded road bike. I >> live in northern Connecticut and occasionally >> do mixed surface rides but bike isn't a "gravel bike"---second hand short >> reach custom road with 11-30 cassette and 700x30 tires. Is it worth a swap >> from a 50-34? Should I just toughen up and join Zwift? While most of my >> road riding is solo or with my young kids, will I be under geared on casual >> club rides? Will the less aggressive gearing be too much overlap with >> other bikes in my Riv stash---Homer with a triple; Legolas on order that >> I'm planning on specing with a 46-28 as a pure dirt road/CX bike? >> > -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
