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| Shimano DX crankset, circa 1985. |
In the past few years, single chainring cranksets have become de rigueur in mountain buke circles and the pattern has been creeping into the gravel and road biking world as well. In some ways it makes sense; one less derailleur saves some weight and complexity. It does require an enormous rear cassette cog, (some are approaching 50 teeth!), and a specially designed rear mechanism to handle that large cog.
Of course, in light of these trends, I have moved in the opposite direction and have converted two of my bikes to triple cranks! I have been using compact, wide range doubles over the past several years. These have been fine, but when using this system, I tend to look at it as a 1X plus granny, which necessitates running the chain across all the rear cogs with the large ring, increasing "chain deflection" and possibly reducing chain life.
I got to thinking, why not add that middle ring and increase the number of gears available while reducing chain deflection? I have several old 110/74 BCD triple cranks laying around and all the necessary chainrings. So I constructed two triples and put them on my Mercian KOM and Ritchey Ascent. The result has been satisfying!
On the Mercian, I installed a venerable Shimano DX, a very nice quality triple from the '80s. i had the appropriate rear derailleur in the parts bin so I installed that as well, using my SunTour Barcons for shift levers.
For the Ritchey, I used a Shimano RSX triple, again from the part bin. I purchased new, (old) derailleurs for it. An RSX triple front and an STX GS rear. To shift these, I kept the Ultegra 8-speed bar end shifters.
Hi George - triples are the best! I'm running them on all three of the bikes I ride the most, including my lightest road bike. I especially like that 36 middle ring from about 13 teeth up to 19, those are great around town gears for the flatness of Sacramento. By the way we actually met one time on the corner of Winding and Garfield, I'm the guy who mentioned that I read your blog. Hope retirement is going well for you.
ReplyDeleteDave Mathews - soon to be retired
Hey Dave! I do remember running into you way back then...I retired in 2014! It's great, i think you'll like it! About the triples...I do find the mid range (36t) quite handy here in the foothills, but with a 11-28 on the road bike, and 11-32 on the Ritchey! I really don't use the granny any more but keep it for loaded touring, (which I haven't done for a while!).
ReplyDeleteI'm also impressed with how well the old Shimano DX and STX derailleurs work with that gearing.