Touring bike gearing?

I’ve never felt the need for DH rims on a tour – including an off road tour – but I am light on kit.

Std brakes (cantis now discs) been fine also.

Rusty what’s your setup with the 42/30, are you running square taper cranks/STIs?

doing it on dropped bars is virtually unheard of outside the UK

I know what you mean. I met a German cycle-tourist in Lake Garda last year. His saddle and handlebars seem to have come off an exercise bike and he was carrying more luggage on his bike than I’d brought by plane. But as he explained, he wasn’t in a hurry.

Rusty what’s your setup with the 42/30, are you running square taper cranks/STIs?

XT M785 2×10 chainset with TA Chinook rings, 11-32 XT 10 speed cassette, XT 9 Speed rear mech, Ultegra 10 speed STI shifters and TRP CX8.4 V brakes.

We met a German guy touring once. He pulled out a tissue to clean his hands after a picnic lunch…he pulled it out of a entire box of Kleenex in his pannier!

He then pulled out a laptop…this was in 1994!

I’m running a mtb crankset with touring outer. 22:32:46. Bar end friction shifters currently. Mtb cassette and rear mech, road bar end indexed shifter again.

Are you running an XT front mech rusty?

Are you running an XT front mech rusty?

Yep, top pull double. Full XT drive train on an Italian frame. Let the purists sniff, but it works for me.

53,39, 30 up front, with 12-28 out back, 10 speed 105 on my Vaya.

Standard SLX Double, and 12-28 on my Fargo.

Are you sure your 105 STI shifters won’t work a triple front chainset as I have a triple Ultegra chainset on my old PX SL winter bike fitted once the GPX chainset wore out & a Tiagra triple fitted to my 2009 CdF.

Both bikes came fitted with 105 STI shifters and double chainsets but I have not changed the shifters.

Right, we’ll I’ve ordered a 105 rear mech, 11-32 cassette, a CX70 front mech and hopefully a middleburn crankset with say 28-42 rings. Phew. I shall report back if that works.

OP, So how did the gearing work out?

I ended up picking up a Kaffenback 2 and putting a Stronglight 48/38/28 triple on the front, coupled to an 11-32 on the back as a more general pootling around gearing, rather than going down the fully loaded tourer route. (Probably because I subconsciously realised I wasn’t going anywhere for a while 🙂 ).

and yes – I know I need to cut the steerer down 🙂

No wonder I found every incline hard work on my tour of the west coast this week….50/34 and 12/25. Perhaps I should have done a bit of research.
It did make for a lot of progress though 🙂

50/34 and 12/25 was what was on my CdF originally. I soon realised that i was too much of a wuss to live with it 🙂

I’m on a Croix de Fer too.
I’ll probably go a bit easier next time, some of the hills and headwinds were a bit testing.

I’ll be tinkering with the CdF after I’ve played around with the Kaff for a bit. The CdF currently has 11/32 on the back (except the wheels are currently on the Kaff :)) and I will leave that alone but change the 50/34 to something lower and possibly closer ratio.

An interesting thread, I’m about to go 11 speed on my Kinesis Tripster and as i plan to go touring i initially thought that i would get away with using an Ultegra spec drivetrain – 46/36 and 11-32 which gives me a gear spread from 30.6″ to 113″, if i remove the 36 and fit a 34tooth on the front i could drop to 28.9″, would i notice the difference?.

Or…….For the past 20 years i have ran Middleburn cranks on my mtbs and i i’d love them on the Tripster, It is possible to rig up a Middleburn RS8 crankset with a 24T/38T or 26T/39T but would this work with the Kinesis Tripster with it’s road BB specs?, I’m not bothered about top speed as as due to an old injury my average speed on the road is well below 15mph so it makes sense to gear for the climbs rather than top speed.

Cheers,

Forget what i said about middleburn – they don’t make 11 speed chainrings….arse, i almost got excited at the thought of a pimp RS8 double on the bike

Great thread. It confirms that I’m right to be suspicious about the sort of gears needed for touring

But Downhill rims. In the my well built rear wheel with an xc (mavic 321?) rim did months of bouncing over rock with me and panniers and never missed a beat

Hi all! Have asked this from Shimano, Wiggle and Bike24 customer service, all giving different answers. Found this thread and thought you guys have actual first hand experience.

The usual story: taking light cyclocross bike for touring in a very hilly area .Currently run full Shimano 10 speed double, except for Ultegra 10 sp.brifters. Cranks 36-46, cassette 11-28.

Ideal solution: replace the cassette with Tiagra 10 sp. of 12-30 and pair it up with Shimano 10 sp. XT M785 Double 24-38 as it has the same Hollowtech II bb I have now and I´d have spot on gearing.

I´ve been told the cable pull doesn´t work as the cranks are Dyna-Sys which only works with straight bars and other D-S components incl. derailleurs, shifters and D-S specific chain (the chain, they say, is so different from reg.10 sp.). Chain change is doable but as I need to switch things back after the tour, will look for simple solutions.

I´m under the impression my safest bet is Shimano FC M590 9-sp. triple ( 48-36-26) that I could run as a double using only the 2 smallest rings, as this is non Dyna-Sys and supposedly will work with 10 speed brifters and derailleurs? I´ve also read Tiagra FD would have better capacity to handle the smaller chainrings?

Please help.

Cadence, ime road FDs don’t shift very well on MTB chainsets, particularly 50mm CL hollwtech 2 chainsets. They can be set up acceptable but won’t shift as well as intended. V-V is also true for MTB FDs on road chainsets (all this assumes ‘road chainset’ means 34-50 and ‘MTB’ means 22-42 ranges – Middleburn make some great ‘middle’ size ring combos that may bridge the gaps well enough)

A 10spd Shimano road STI and MTB 10spd cassette will work with a 9sd Shimano MTB mech though so 46 or 48 / 34 road chainset with an 11-36 rear is a good light touring double set up that’s easy to get working well as well as cheap / easy to swap out for normal road kit as needed after your trip.

I´m under the impression my safest bet is Shimano FC M590 9-sp. triple ( 48-36-26) that I could run as a double using only the 2 smallest rings, as this is non Dyna-Sys and supposedly will work with 10 speed brifters and derailleurs? I´ve also read Tiagra FD would have better capacity to handle the smaller chainrings?

The 10s chain on a 9s chainring – not sure about that, may work OK, I’ve not tried it so can’t comment from experience. You could use a 10s MTB triple chainset though, the Dynasys bit is only about mech pull ratios. For chainsets, 10spd is 10spd, a 10spd chain will run fine on any of them. The road FD won’t shift a 26-36 combo very well though.

Maybe look at the actual gear inches one system that you’d like offers and see if the combo of a 10spd road STI, 34-46 chainset and double FD and an MTB 10spd 11-36 cassette with a 9spd MTB RD offers close enough? 34/36 is almost as low as 26/28, ie damn near the same. It’s what I’d use on a bike that had drops for touring on light-middling loads – if I need lower I use a bike with a 9s MTB triple set up and a swept-back bar that can take MTB shifters. Add a Middleburn square taper 30-42 chainset with ~45mm chainline (the pricey bit) if you need lower still and want to stick to the drops set up your bike has.

I use 22/32/44 mtb chainset with 11/28 9 speed cassette and bullet proof downtube dura ace shifters with the friction option

running a Deore 9speed triple 48 36 26 with Ultrega STI’s XT front and long cage rear and 12-34 …….

confession done reading above sorted (hopefully) – this review over on road.cc mightbe of interest – Tiagra 10speed with various options – think I’ll be looking at this to replace my Deore and mrs antigee’s 10speed triple 105

http://road.cc/content/news/147338-shimano-launch-shimano-tiagra-4700-groupset

edit this is a very recent news article

The problem with that is when you change at the front, you then have to change 2 or 3 cogs at the back to correct the massive jump in gearing at the front, not a particular problem if you are crestiing a hill and picking up speed, but if you have just hit a steep bit and are dropping gears, you lose all momentum while you get everything sorted out.[/quote]

How long does it take you to change a couple of gears? I don’t find a problem changing front and rear gears at the same time, which is something you tend to do as standard with a compact road chainset. I do have Campag on the roadie, which makes it easier to change up a couple of gears on the back when changing down on the front, but the tandem with Shimano has 52/39/26 chainrings and normally a 12-27 9 speed cassette and I’ve never found it to be an issue with that either. Much prefer achieving the gearing range with the chainrings which decreases the gaps between gears to keep the cadence steady.

My gf has one of these which has a mix of road/mtb stuff which works fine…

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/ridgeback/voyage-2014-touring-bike-ec059660

Might be worth looking at the spec?
8 speed MTB cassette, chainset, derailuers, all operated with road STI’s

I guess this is before they fiddled around with all the cable-pull ratios for 10 speed stuff though.

Interesting points of view. I did some gear-inch checking with good old Sheldon, and it seems only the MTB dbl 24-38 ( or Deore triple set up as a dbl) paired with a wider range cassette than I expected ( 11-32) would give me the lowest gear 20.3 which would be perfect. The 36-46 paired with 11-36 would give me 25,5 gi.

I don´t know is it possible to swap the 36t ring for a smaller one, and if it would be, how small ring could it take?

Having done a similar hillside tour last summer I too am one of those who swear by small gears. It´s amazing how the tiredness accumulates on your legs.. It´s reassuring to know there´s a few “emergency gears” left for those log-leg hours of the day.

Unless someone can convince me of the Dynasys compatibility with the rest of my setup, I think I´ll settle for the Deore triple paired with the Tiagra cassette and possibly changing the FD.

I’ve gone with a 22/32/44 xt chainset coupled with an 11-32 9spd cassette and Dura Ace 9spd barend shifters. Should hopefully give me plenty of gears 🙂

I have Middleburn R02 Touring cranks, 38 outer 28 inner & 10 spd 11-36 Cassette on my Tripster with XTR clutch mech and shifters, it was certainly low enough yesterday for the Burma road climb at Aviemore but i did have a few recovery stops and to get the camera out 😉 , I also did the High path route up Glen Einich which was very much shorter but steeper in sections.

I wasn’t laden down (apart from a few kg of unwanted fat) but i imagine a gear inch of 21.5 will get me up anything on the road with luggage and the gaps between the gearing wasn’t an issue for me – for most of the off-road stuff it was always in the small ring and the 38 was only used on the road to head back after riding all day.

Burma road climb, steep and loose

I have the Middleburn Incy and I think Matt said the 22/40 was their most popular for touring – I have 26 / 38 on my Jake for on off road stuff around here, S.Wales, with 11/30 out the back. I also have a Middleburn Duo 27/40 on my Peregrine with mtb 11/36 out back which also works well.

Simonbarnes = what’s the tyre clearance like on the TdF?

Simonbarnes = what’s the tyre clearance like on the TdF?

Can’t quite remember off the top of my head and bike is at work and I’m on holiday. Have put 37c tyres on, pretty sure larger would also fit.

Simondbarnes gets the award. That’s the correct setup. 😛

We run similar on the tandems, one with a TA Zephyr crank that let’s us run a 20 chainring if it’s really hilly. I have an old Avid adapter from the 80’s that also let’s me run a 20 on a 64 bcd crank (converts 64 to 58). Bar end shifters solve all the compatibility shite and you can use mtb cassettes and rear derailleurs for wide range gearing.

When touring, you can’t have enough low gears or brakes especially on tandems.

Absolutely, triple. A touring bike should be ultra-comfortable, have gearing that is far easier than you would normally use and dead robust. I’ve found weight is not really something to worry about but riding position and a good saddle are everything.

My tourer rocks.Hmm, can’t seem to find a decent picture of it

Here’s a picture of it at the top of the monster climb, Park Rash

Park Rash at the top by Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr

Simondbarnes – that’s the same as the standard setup on the full build of the CDF.

I thought I would have to fit higher gears but after going on a couple of rides I think it’s perfect. The highest gears are just right and the lowest is good for churning up the hills taking in the views!

http://www.gevenalle.com/ this may be of interest to some of you.

Apologies if already covered, but will an XT Tripple run ok with a 105 STI & front mech?

Even if it’s a triple front 105 shifter you’ll struggle to get the front mech working nicely Nick.

That was my thought..
Any ideas Simon?
MTB Front Mech?

Use bar cons then the front is friction so no issue. STI’s have no place on a proper touring bike…

Get a rohloff nick 😉