First ride on the tandem through proper mud today and the constant chain suck made it almost impossible.
It’s got 3×8 42-32-22 x 11-30 with Shimano Revoshift twist shifters and a Shimano Acera rear derailleur.
We’re only getting chain suck on the granny ring, no problem at all on the middle ring, which got me thinking about trying 2×8.
Putting the numbers in to http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/ it looks like with an 11-34 on the back, we would only effectively lose the bottom two gears. I reckon we could live with that.
Does that sound like a good solution, or should we be looking at a better quality granny ring, chain and rear derrailleur to cure the problem ?
Long term, I’m waiting for a cheap Rohloff hub to turn up on ebay, meanwhile £10 for a cassette is cheap enough and the derailleur is good for a 34t bottom gear and 43t total range.
(42-32)+(34-11)=33 Have I got that right ?