Oval chainrings are back?

[Spoker]

Or were they never gone?
Have been riding my old cross bike on the road after> 15 years non use, because it fits 32 mm tires.
It has a 40 T Q ring on the front (because of Marrianne Vos did so).
It feels weird on the flats, but as soon I hit the mountains, the odd feeling disappears.
Now when I ride the round rings , while climbing, I realize the assist I'm getting "over the top" from the ovals.
I'm a convert now, and can see myself combining a round outer with an oval inner for the climbs.

.

[zzy]

Oval rings won the yellow jersey 5 of the last 7 years. I'm not a huge fan, but it works. Front shifting suffers considerably tho.

[AngryScientist]

Damned if I can tell the difference. I have oval rings on my bike and if I didn’t look down and see I would never know the difference between them and round.

[Hellgate]

I swore them off on the '80's. Just say, No!

[Ken Robb]

The big ring on my 1989 MB-3 was oval. I thought that was rather odd since it was supposed to help on climbs but why would I want to climb in my big ring when I had a triple crank?

[duff_duffy]

I second this statement!

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Damned if I can tell the difference. I have oval rings on my bike and if I didn’t look down and see I would never know the difference between them and round.

[ultraman6970]

I have not tried rotor oval ones ever so i do not know, but what it was biopace from shimano back in the day, yes youo can tell the difference. The issue with biopace is that you cant spin with them, if you were a smasher or having problems keeping pace making the thing worked super nice but what I and other guys that raced with me was that your rpms were limited up to like 80/85.. anything more than that you had problems keeping them.

For a guy going to get wine down the street were fantastic but in racing world if you can't spin comfortably and do changes in the rhythm by just pressing the pedals a little, then you were to get in troubles really quick. And probably that was the reason biopace just died.

I used them for a little time trying to get used to them, after the second race missing out attacks I removed them. IN the mountains I would say that work better tho.

THe rotor ones can be set up so the curves are in other spots and you can tune them, but biopace.. no way.. for regular guys awesome, for racing biopace did not work.

[mistermo]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Damned if I can tell the difference. I have oval rings on my bike and if I didn’t look down and see I would never know the difference between them and round.

I third this statement!

[Elefantino]

Also used Biopace ("bee-o-pa-chay") in the 80s. Stopped using them around the time I stopped wearing jean shorts.


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[Wayne77]

This might not need saying but oval rings in the 80’s and oval rings now are not the same thing. The long axis of the oval or I should say ‘decidedly not round’ shape is aligned to the pedal stroke completely different with the rings today. That’s why Biopace was horrible and why the non-round rings today have plenty of adopters. Biopace had the mechanics/leverage all wrong.

[azrider]

I will never buy another mountain bike that doesn't have oval chainrings

[SlowPokePete]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Damned if I can tell the difference. I have oval rings on my bike and if I didn’t look down and see I would never know the difference between them and round.

Me, too.

Biggest advantage was getting the 46/30...would be just as happy if they were round.

Maybe even happier.

SPP

[Hilltopperny]

I have an oval ring set up 1x and definitely like it so far. I am currently running my MRB with an absolute black 34t up front with an 11-34 cassette.

It feels a little smoother on the climbs as far as I can tell, but I have only ridden it a couple hundred miles so far in this set up.

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[martl]

Oval rings and similar inventions will never go away because riders will always gladly embrace anything that is promising to give them the odd 1% more, and no one is more ready to accept a fairy tale.
(That englishman who won the TdF did so both with round and oval)

There is a more advanced, mechanically guided, system currently available which should make much greater gains using the same/a very similar kind of principle, its called "cyfly".
Independent measurements showed *no* factual gain at all. It doesn't stop the very entusiastic user reviews.

[duff_duffy]

The cyfly is certainly an odd set up!

Originally Posted by martl

Oval rings and similar inventions will never go away because riders will always gladly embrace anything that is promising to give them the odd 1% more, and no one is more ready to accept a fairy tale.
(That englishman who won the TdF did so both with round and oval)

There is a more advanced, mechanically guided, system currently available which should make much greater gains using the same/a very similar kind of principle, its called "cyfly".
Independent measurements showed *no* factual gain at all. It doesn't stop the very entusiastic user reviews.