Low Gears and Internet Shaming

[tommyrod74]

Originally Posted by Baron Blubba

My fastest times on all the local hills and favorite courses will never be set on my Bridgestone 550 with a 42x26 low gear. However, that bike is consistently fast for me, because there's really no choice but to go at a reasonably brisk pace while going uphill with those ratios. And since I won't shame myself by using the 26, and because I love a good palindrome, I end up using 42x24, which is even faster.

If you ride your bike backwards in a velodrome, does that make it a palindrome?

[Talrand]

Originally Posted by Fat Cat

I was shamed for my triples. Beginning at post70 and continuing sporadically

https://www.bikeforums.net/general-c...ra-best-3.html

For what I am, where I am, and what I do that triple setup keeps me out of trouble and gets where I want to go. A 28 cog would be nice tho and I'm working on it. All without a hideous pie plate. Not at all like the 42/52, 13-18 dicktated in the late70's.

At least you have no axe to grind with people using other gearing than you

Also, most of the comments you got were about how small your gear range was despite running a triple, which should usually let you get to 1:1 at least...

[benb]

Originally Posted by tommyrod74

To be totally fair, most people hate triples for aesthetic reasons as well as the difficulties in getting the front derailleur dialed. Not so much a "toughen up" thing.

I have never actually owned a road triple. I did ride one a couple times. Was this because road triples had a large tooth gap between the middle and small ring? At the time doubles had a 12-14 tooth gap between the two rings.

I had several triples on MTBs and basically had zero trouble getting them shifting perfectly and they kept working for a very, very long time.

I also help a bunch of family members who have cheap MTB drivetrains with triples and basically without exception they work fine, arguably easier to setup than much more expensive 50/34 setups. When they ask me for help and they're not working great it's almost always that the cables are now REALLY old and it's time for a cable & housing change, but then I can usually just get them working again anyway, even without replacing the obviously shot cables.

Unless expensive road triples really sucked worse than any other triple I'm skeptical that it was bad quality rather than actual shaming/cool factor.

Back when the 50/34 showed up I thought they were so much worse in performance than triples I thought it just had to be cool factor. I think the negative cool factor of a Dura Ace or Record Triple was a big factor.

[tommyrod74]

Originally Posted by benb

I have never actually owned a road triple. I did ride one a couple times. Was this because road triples had a large tooth gap between the middle and small ring? At the time doubles had a 12-14 tooth gap between the two rings.

I had several triples on MTBs and basically had zero trouble getting them shifting perfectly and they kept working for a very, very long time.

I also help a bunch of family members who have cheap MTB drivetrains with triples and basically without exception they work fine, arguably easier to setup than much more expensive 50/34 setups. When they ask me for help and they're not working great it's almost always that the cables are now REALLY old and it's time for a cable & housing change, but then I can usually just get them working again anyway, even without replacing the obviously shot cables.

Unless expensive road triples really sucked worse than any other triple I'm skeptical that it was bad quality rather than actual shaming/cool factor.

Back when the 50/34 showed up I thought they were so much worse in performance than triples I thought it just had to be cool factor. I think the negative cool factor of a Dura Ace or Record Triple was a big factor.

In my experience, more dropped chains, less tolerant of sub-optimal setup of the FD, and difficult to avoid rubbing when even slightly cross-chained.

Even if it's user error in the setup, they are just more work to set up and tune. It didn't help that most triples weren't DA or Record, but much cheaper groupsets with correspondingly worse performance.

I have zero issues with any drivetrain people choose to fit their needs, I just know I'd rather work on (and ride) some setups than others.

[fourflys]

I've owned three triples in my bike lifetime.. 2 Rivs with friction for the front, stupid easy shifting for sure..

when I got my Serotta Coeur D'Acer, it had a Campy Record 10 Triple on it that shifted perfectly the whole time I rode it set up that way.. I never futzed with it, so can't say how hard/easy it was to set up, but the shifting was fantastic.. I did replace it with an Ultegra 8000 setup with a 50/34 and 11/36 out back that also shifts great and gives me plenty of range.. I think the triple might have had a 26 front/28 rear in the small/small, so similar range for the low gears?

[Hilltopperny]

I was an early adopter of pie plates after receiving my Drifter in 2017. It came with a 52/36 with an 11-32 cassette which was adequate for the road, but not so much for the off road stuff that I ride. I swapped the rear cassette to an 11-42 and it changed my riding life. I now had enough gear to get my 200+ lb self up and over steep long climbs that would have me walking otherwise. Most of my current bikes are set up with 10-50 1x gearing.

[tylercheung]

personally for me it's not so much about gears but i wish my cardio was such that i could keep up w/ friends who ride at 22 mph average vs my usual 17 mph

[Fat Cat]

Every MTB I've had since the beginning was a triple and like was said they all worked from the cheapest to XTR. Never had a problem. The same goes for the road triples, all Shimano. Easypeasy. The "narrow" range on the triples I have are on purpose. The 30/39/50 shifts like a whiz. Likewise with the 14-25. I don't go anywhere that I need a lower than 30" gear.
Is this aesthetically offensive ? #143
https://forums.thepaceline.net/showt...301314&page=10

[fourflys]

Originally Posted by tylercheung

personally for me it's not so much about gears but i wish my cardio was such that i could keep up w/ friends who ride at 22 mph average vs my usual 17 mph

right?!?! If I had the cardio/strength to consistently ride at 22 mph, I probably wouldn't need the lower gears I enjoy.. but maybe.. but, I'm not 25 anymore, don't have 30 yrs of racing in my legs, and don't have 10-15 hrs a week to train so.. I do envy the local club a bit as the majority is riders who have retired, some youngish, and have rides most weekdays in the mornings.. there's certainly some fit riders..

but hey, I get out (or on the trainer) when I can and enjoy my bikes how I can..

[benb]

Originally Posted by tommyrod74

In my experience, more dropped chains, less tolerant of sub-optimal setup of the FD, and difficult to avoid rubbing when even slightly cross-chained.

Even if it's user error in the setup, they are just more work to set up and tune. It didn't help that most triples weren't DA or Record, but much cheaper groupsets with correspondingly worse performance.

I have zero issues with any drivetrain people choose to fit their needs, I just know I'd rather work on (and ride) some setups than others.

I think it's funny that we think the triples dropped chains that much when it was only in the era of the compact 50/34 that dropped chains became so common that a cottage industry of chain drop protectors was created and then manufacturers started including them stock with frames.

The last bike I built as a frameset the choice was partially made to do a frameset because I didn't want at 50/34 and all complete models of the bike came with a 50/34. When I got the frameset it came with a pre-installed chain drop protector that was sized for the 50/34 and I had to order the one for larger chainrings... That's my Domane, and I'm really curious if the "Race Shop" version that was ridden by the Trek Pro teams came pre-installed with a 50/34 protector installed too, because it would have been especially ridiculous for them, and the Domane was never intended as a high mountains race bike.

50/34 dropped more chains because the chain has to drop further to go to the small chainring. It was so bad all the front derailleurs had to get redesigned and then SRAM struggled with it so much that they never got it right till they had electronic front derailleurs, and then they made the AXS chainring sizes which are a much better solution.

From a certain perspective it seems like the dog chasing it's own tail making tons of engineering changes to deal with problems caused because of gear shaming of triples.

I think far and away the problems come when the gaps between the rings get too large... MTB triples never had 16-20 tooth differences that I ever saw, IIRC the last MTB triple I had (XT) had smaller gaps between the rings than any road setup I've ever had, I want to say only a 8-10 tooth gaps.

[prototoast]

Would you guys stop shaming my 1x road setups. It works for me.

[charliedid]

Originally Posted by prototoast

Would you guys stop shaming my 1x road setups. It works for me.

You're clearly missing something.

[benb]

Originally Posted by charliedid

You're clearly missing something.

LOL.

You gotta read between the lines to figure out what's missing with 1x?

FWIW I am sitting here anxiously waiting for UPS to drop off a drop bar bike that is 1x and has low gears.

[fourflys]

Originally Posted by prototoast

Would you guys stop shaming my 1x road setups. It works for me.

pretty sure you're being tongue in cheek here, but I'm for sure 1x curious.. just haven't had a bike with it yet.. as I've said before, I have no need to pedal hard down hills, so I don't need a huge tall gear.. 1x might be perfect for the way I ride.. when I mentioned the Campy triple on the Serotta above, I was in the middle ring probably 75% of the time.. at least..

*and I'm sure I'm probably missing something here..

[benb]

Yah I'm really curious to see how it goes too.

My All City has had 35c tires on it for a while and I've only been using it for riding to work this year.

1X with like a 40 or 46 ring would work perfectly fine on that bike even with the current 12-34 cassette it has. I'm just not riding it up any hill of significance. But all 1x setups seem to have a wider range cassette anyway.

That is the bike that's getting replaced with a 1x bike, but I anticipate using the new bike for a wider range of stuff.