Gear setup for Fred Whitton

[IBarrett]

Hi all,

I have 2 x Giant Defy bikes which are different gearing but I don't believe they have been changed from the 'standard' spec, and I wonder if I can get your advice on altering the gearing on one of them for the very serious hills I'm going to encounter on "the Fred"

Giant Defy1 is in UK and will be used for the Fred
It has Shimano 105 12/28 cassette and 34/50 chainrings

Giant Defy2 is in Spain and I've just been riding it up some fantastic hills and it suits me pretty well for hill riding, though I wonder if even lower gears than this might help.
It has Tiagra 12/30 cassette and 34/50 chainrings too.

I have the original wheels from the Defy1 UK bike so changing the cassette in readiness wouldn't get in the way of my training and would allow me to try the setup first.

If I wanted to make the same gearing on the UK bike as the Spain bike is it as simple as just putting a 12/30 cassette on my spare rear wheel ?
Would I be able to fit a different front chainring to get even lower gears?
Has anyone ridden the Fred and got gearing recommendations?

Thanks in advance for your help.
IanB

 

[si_c]

I'd try putting a 32 on the 105 if you have the medium cage version (I'm assuming 105 5800).

If not swap to a tiagra triple

 

[IBarrett]

With the way my legs are feeling at the minute the Triple off my MTB is looking very tempting.