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Colleague is using bike to work scheme to buy a 26 inch wheel mountain bike that he wants to use as an off-road tourer at times. Doing Scottish estate landrover tracks etc. He's taking the £1000 amount. He says he has quite specific requirements for low gear ratio saying he must have a 22 tooth granny ring on the front and a 34 tooth cog on the back.
As I am a person who can't absorb numbers I have no idea if this is standard or not. He says he looked at the boardman mtb at this price point and it was a 2x front setup that he felt didn't meet his requirements. Any suggestions from the stw collective?
The 22 is a pretty much standard mtb triple granny ring, on the back, most bikes come with 11-32, but 11-34 is also a common size. To be honest, 22/34 is so low that you might as well get off and crawl up the trail on your hands and knees as it'll be slightly quicker. If he really does need gears that low, why not suggest that he finds a bike he likes and then gets the shop to swap the rings/crank-set and/or cassette before he rides it?
What BWD said - buy a bike he likes then sort the gearing, most 9s triples will come with 22-32 anyway, which is only 6% higher.
I am guessing he wants the low gears due to the weight on the bike/long days BWD, rather than pure steepness.
Thanks guys. That's really helpful. He easy just starting to obsess a bit that standard set ups wouldn't meet his specific wishes based on past touring. He's now acknowledged that 34t is probably over-egging it a bit and that 22/32 will be fine.
Job done,
# thread closed 🙂
Or a 22/34 ratio singlespeed 🙂