For bike packing hilly touring on gravelly bikes with 11-speed road compacts at the mo, 11-32t.

Need to keep R685 shifters and ideally mechs and cassette so what options for a lower gear?

Triple chainset with the big ring removed?
MTB double chainset with spacers on the BB?

Will be touring with others on single ring 38t 11-40t so can hopefully get near to that range.

If you have a compact , ie 50 34 chainset then you already have virtually the same low gear as the others on a 1x and a bigger overall range of gears . You could try an 11 36 MTB casette on the back to get lower if your mech can handle it .

No, we haven’t.

34-32 = 29″
38-40 = 26″

Would like around
30t 11-32 for 25.6″

And 11sp road mech won’t work with mtb cassette

I’m not sure you’ll find any 11spd triples, 34 front + 32 rear is the lowest you’re probably going to find without some franken-fettling. You’re supposed to use a medium cage rear mech with a 32t sprocket but I don’t bother and haven’t died (yet) – just don’t cross the chain up on big cog/big ring

Sorry I should have woken up properly before posting . I did the sum for a 32 front and 34 rear sprocket and forgot you were on 11 speed not 10 .

No worries. One of our party has stumbled across the Sugino OX610d crankset which sounds just the job, albeit for £160 inc BB. 40-30 double.

Another has a 105 10sp triple on another bike, so will try and see if his double mech will work on the 2 inner rings. The 11sp chain will be fine on 10sp chain rings.

Why do you think you need lower gearing?

Not biting DT.

This is for Torino Nice for any one else interested in loaded touring with 11sp set ups.

I have 105 11 with a mid cage Ultegra rear mech, running 11-32 – I reckon it would take a 34 if such a thing exists, possibly even 36 but I think you’d be disassembling an MTB casssette and sticking the sprocket on. Could you find a 32 or 30 with the same BCD for the front? I know 50/34 is the supposed max, but front shifting is always a bit agricultural anyway.

No, 34 or there is a 33 is lowest 110bcd.

And 11-32 is girliest 11sp road cassette I think.

richardthird – Member
Not biting DT.

Genuine question. How do you know? “Because everyone else is using them” doesn’t really cut it 😉

You might get on absolutely fine with what you currently have.

Get one of those wolftooth tanpan thingies, a MTB mech and run a 42 out back if you really want

article on chainsets over on road.cc someone pointed out this little beauty of a cx option – depends on BB and budget 48/32T or 46/30T

http://www.fullspeedahead.com/products/cranksets-road/sl-k-light-adventure-modular-bb386evo/

not sure and but would have thought a 105 9 or 10speed triple could be run OK just leave the outer on?

or mtfu

Nice but £400!

Anyone run the inner 2 rings of a road triple with a double mech?

“Nice but £400!”

well I did give the budget option as well 🙂

The compact isn’t enough for the climbs we’re doing, I know this because it’s my flamingo legs that will be propelling it through the alps and with 622×40 rubber on it’s running a bigger smallest effective gear than my road bike with a 36 tooth inner front ring.
It’s fine for road climbs but roughly 1/3 of our route is military strada gravel and with about 20kg of bike and luggage I will struggle with the steeper sections.

Using a pulley to change the pull ratio alongside a mtb cassette and derailleur is something I’ve dismissed as this bike is also going to be my winter road bike/commuter and being able to switch cranksets and chains back and forth is easy.

There was an article I stumbled across detailed how someone had took the rear cage from a certain LX Trekking mech and it fitted onto a 11-speed Shimano rear mech perfectly and enabled up to 34 or 36 at rear, though I think any issue with that is a complete lack of suitable cassettes unless you go for an expensive IRD version.

Middleburn do a 94bcd 11 speed chainset which is a little spendy.

The 10 speed triple shouldn’t be an issue but the chainline of the iner might be a bit extreme but if you’re just using as a bail out gear I suppose you’d be using it at the larger end of the cassette anyway.

Theres always something like the Spa chainsets that are cheap, but they are square taper if thats an issue to you but on the bright side playing around with bb axle lengths means a good chainline.

If you’re running 11 speed shifters then its probably lack of bigger range cassettes that’ll stop anything happening at the back – I’d probably go for a smaller double (or franken-triple) at front.

Don’t forget mtb double will be running on a 73mm bb spacing (obviously with spacers for a 68mm shell) so not sure if chainline would be okay.

yeah that was the conclusion I was coming to, alongside the wider Q factor.

and it fitted onto a 11-speed Shimano rear mech perfectly and enabled up to 34 or 36 at rear, though I think any issue with that is a complete lack of suitable cassettes unless you go for an expensive IRD version.

Sram do 11spd road cassettes up to a 36t

I think I’d get off and push the steeper bits for a change 🙂 – though the 40/30 option looks good.

Think I’d rather do that than have a franken mech in the middle of nowhere, I just know it’d blow up on me.

Sram do 11spd road cassettes up to a 36t

Compatible with Shimano? I know the 10sp were before Shimano went different ways with 11sp road & mtb, but 11sp road?

This article covers all the options

Low Gear Range: Road Shifters & Gears For Easier Hill Climbing

I’d say options are

Mtb cassette and rear derailleur with shift mate

Or inner 2 rings of a double. This would allow you to use a 26 inner ring on a road triple

Compatible with Shimano? I know the 10sp were before Shimano went different ways with 11sp road & mtb, but 11sp road?

Compatible with freehub body & chain. You may need to do something with the mech to allow it to cope with a 36 though.

My cx bikes uses ultegra 11 speed sti and rear mech but with 11-40 xt rear cassette and it works just fine
But it is single front ring , ive not tried it as a double and you may have problems with chain length

SRAM are way ahead on this stuff.

Road and MTB are mix and match at any speed. Also SRAM 10 speed medium cage road mechs are all rated to 36T and the 36 cassette is a standard option on the group set

Sadly Shimano have diverged making all this stuff harder

orangeboy – Member
My cx bikes uses ultegra 11 speed sti and rear mech but with 11-40 xt rear cassette and it works just fine
But it is single front ring , ive not tried it as a double and you may have problems with chain length

That is very interesting thanks. A 38t single ring would work with this.

Not read all the replies but spa cycles do proper touring chainsets including a super compact double which goes down to a 24 inner chainring if that helps

I do use a 38 narrow wide as a single front ring.
It’s the only frame ive tried it on and may be different on other frames ,

I started with a sram 36 cassette and it worked so easily I stuck the xt cassette on to see and been very happy.
Long cage ultegra mech

If you get a Lindarets Roadlink you can run an SRAM 11 speed 11-36 cassette with Shimano road mech

orangeboy, I’ve got an 11-40 on the way, thanks for your input!

There’s a 105 mech on not sure if med or long, but swapping that or changing the cage to aftermarket/using jamesgarbett’s (thanks to you too!)suggested dropout extender is easily done if a longer b-limit screw isn’t enough.

looking at 22.5 gear inches instead of 29.1, which is the difference I wanted and some, being able to stay seated and keep the weight over the rear is going to help enormously.

Have you checked spa cycles to see if you can run a smaller ring at the front? You. Might be able to get a 32 or 30 on a compact chainset?

2 inner rings on triple here. 10 sped chainset/ derailleur. 9 speed chain.

Good, more options than first thought, many thanks all.

For others reading, the CX1 PG1170 11-36 is the SRAM cassette mentioned above that’s been used successfully with Shimano road 11-sp set ups.

richardthird
Good, more options than first thought, many thanks all.

For others reading, the CX1 PG1170 11-36 is the SRAM cassette mentioned above that’s been used successfully with Shimano road 11-sp set ups.

Is that 2* or only 1* ? ta

I use it 1x but I think on the Lindarets website it says compatible with 2x

Def a road link and use your current mech. I’ve had it set up single ring with a 11-40 cassette on a short road mech. Now got the tanpan also so I can run a clutch shimano mech for rough days in big hills. There’s lots of info on their site about which combinations work. 18 bikes are the place for UK stock.

@jonba @kilo the spa cycles cranks or the sugino ones where were I was heading, but going to try the wide ratio cassette first, £54 it has to be tried before considering the £160+ options.