Just got myself a new bike after a couple years off the bike. I can’t make my mind up but I’m after a bashguard. Do I go for the MRP XCG Triple Ring Bashguard or do I just remove my third ring & get a bashring to protect the other two. I don’t seem to be using the third ring at all.

What bashrings would people recommend & how do I set up my front mech?

I run a bash ring with 22/36 and 24/38 on my 2 bikes. I don’t miss having the big ring and with a bash ring you have a bit more clearance over rocks etc.. I guess there’s not much difference between them but I like Blackspire and Raceface bashrings. Some like e-13 can be a bit heavy. As for setting it up. Once you have 2 rings and a bash ring on your cranks- Shift into your middle ring at the front There’s 2 little adjuster screws on your front mech. Turn the ‘H’ one until you can’t shift into the big ring. Leave your front mech where it is on the frame.

With a 36t ring and your outer removed you only loose top gear off a 44t big ring, and bottom gear off your 32t middle (roughly speaking, using an 11-34 casstte) so you’ll need the little ring a bit more often.
That’s what I just fitted, although I’ve not tried it out yet.

Here’s the table I worked it out from –
(Given in gear inches – Front divided by rear X 26)

22 32 36 44
11 52.00 75.64 85.09 104.00
13 44.00 64.00 72.00 88.00
15 38.13 55.47 62.40 76.27
17 33.65 48.94 55.06 67.29
20 28.60 41.60 46.80 57.20
23 24.87 36.17 40.70 49.74
26 22.00 32.00 36.00 44.00
30 19.07 27.73 31.20 38.13
34 16.82 24.47 27.53 33.65

As you can see, a 36/11 is not far off a 44/13 and a 36/34 is almost identical to a 32/30
🙂

Sorry, that table won’t space out properly, but you get the idea!

My advice would be to avoid the metal ones. If you think that E13 superchargers are too heavy look at Gamut, more robust than the metal flavours, lighter than E13.