new compact crank

[Ken Robb]

I got the FSA 50-34 installed in place of DA-10 spd cranks on my Legend with 12-27 cassette. I took a brief ride and: It certainly gets me closer to the low gears I enjoy on other bikes with triples and it lets me keep the beautiful DA group. The shifting of the front rings is almost as perfect as with the DA 53-39. I now understand some of the comments about the 16 tooth gap requiring some coincidental shifting of cogs when shifting the rings to narrow the gap between the rings. I can live with it to gain the wider ratios. The 50-12 high gear is high enough for me. In my perfect world, starting from scratch, I would just as soon have a 53/39/30 or 48-38-28 triple with the same cassette if they shifted as slick as the DA 10 spd. I wouldn't mind the extra weight. I need to ride it more to finalize my opinion of this compact set-up.

[eddief]

and back in the nine speed era, my bikes are slowly getting converted to 48/34 up front and 11-32 in the rear. My old body enjoys knowing it can spin up any hill here in the East Bay. With an sram 990 11-32 and a Deore XT long cage in the rear the system works remarkably well... for me. With the wide range cassette of course there are slightly larger gaps but for my style of riding it works real fine.

Ken, I have had good luck going up to 30 teeth on a stock 12-27 cassette with a normal short cage road rear d. I removed the 13 at the bottom and replaced it with a 30 at the top. This might be another way to get the low you want.