Road chainsets on mountain bikes

Will they fit? Or am I going to foul the rings against the chainstays?
Square taper, so axle length’s not a problem.

I’m looking at building up some sort of horror show of a singlespeed for commuting on, but I want a higher ratio than 44t would provide me with.

Problems are with hitting the chainstay

If you say axle length isnt a problem then you could avoid this prob as long as you dont have a massive Q factor and horrible chainline

Never mind – I’ve just worked out ratios, I think I can go small enough on the back to make it okay.

Yes, I should have done this first.

You can get 48t chainrings for MTB chainsets too 🙂

You can get 48t chainrings for MTB chainsets too

Yeah, I know – it’s just that there were a few cheap road chainsets on CRC, and it’s only for a hack.

always very tempting aren’t they 👿 but very rarely successful

Just cant see its worth it. My mate tried it with an ultegra chainset on his yeti and wish he’d never bothered in the end.

I’ve seen it work fine.
Might be more likely on a steel frame with skinny stays, and you can always give them a tap with a hammer for more room!

If you can then go for the bigger chainset, as you’ll have better jumps between the rear gears then.. If you’re on the 11-12-13 sprockets all the time, it’ll wear out faster.. Go bigger and you’ll be able to pick a nice range cassette to suit.

EDIT.. Sorry, ignore that bit about gears.. You said singlespeed! It’s always worth running bigger rings/sprockets though for a lower wear factor.

Are you upping wheel size too? That’ll give more “Gear Inches” for the same cog size.

If you stick the single ring on the outside you’ll have loads of room anyway.. Just maybe not on the first BB you buy!
I’ve got a un-53 68/107 kicking around if you want it..

I have road triple on my mtb, 32/42/52.
Just used the same bb and the granny ring ever so slightly rubbed off the chainstay, nothing serious though.
It works fine.