Gearing for Alpine Touring

[GrumpyGregry]

So if I could scrape together the cash for this, should do the trick nicely? What would you say it was worth though? Sub 100 miles of use I think.

If you're skint but 10% fit I'd just go for a wider range cassette and suffer for the cause.

 

[iLB]

If you're skint but 10% fit I'd just go for a wider range cassette and suffer for the cause.

I hope I'll be more than 10% fit! The guy wants 65£ for the lot, which seems pretty good.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I hope I'll be more than 10% fit! The guy wants 65£ for the lot, which seems pretty good.

yeah sorry missed a nought!

£65 is a bargain.

 

[andym]

£65 is a bargain.

Ignore all the blather about inches. I have rarely seem anyone doing more than freewheeling down the other side of a mountain pass. Even if you are lucky enough to have a long run out, you can still go fast enough with MTB gearing: go as low as you can go.

 

[Gravity Aided]

65 pounds (sorry, in the States, have no L pound thingie on my keyboard) is not a bad price at all for all that. andym is correct, go as low as you can go.

 

[Dave Davenport]

Ignore all the blather about inches.

All the 'blather' about gear inches was to indicate what lowest gear the various options would work out to, how that effected the biggest gears wasn't even mentioned.

 

[Ticktockmy]

Ignore all the blather about inches. I have rarely seem anyone doing more than freewheeling down the other side of a mountain pass. Even if you are lucky enough to have a long run out, you can still go fast enough with MTB gearing: go as low as you can go.

.
For all the years I have been cycling and touring, I have never been bothered to get into the Tech stuff about inches, guess I have missed out somewhat.! touring wise I have just bought the cassette with the biggest sprocket and left the chain rings as the come with the set. somehow I have survived...LOL

 

[GrumpyGregry]

.
For all the years I have been cycling and touring, I have never been bothered to get into the Tech stuff about inches, guess I have missed out somewhat.! touring wise I have just bought the cassette with the biggest sprocket and left the chain rings as the come with the set. somehow I have survived...LOL

some of us prefer to thrive...

... hence the 'blather' about inches

 

[iLB]

£65 is a bargain.

Figured you might say that, hmm..

 

[oldfatfool]

Fully loaded I pretty much managed the Alps and Pyrenees without dropping out of the middle ring (38t) with an 11/34 cassette, so imo you should be fine swapping to a 12/28 cassette with a 30 chainring.

 

[geo]

I'm off to the Alps on Sunday and have this morning changed my cassette to a 12/30 from 11/27 I'm on a 50/34 compact set up so hoping the extra gear will get me up some of those climbs the pro's seemed to fly up last week !!! although most of them have got a good 20 year head start on me !! besides being considerably fitter too.

 

[andym]

All the 'blather' about gear inches was to indicate what lowest gear the various options would work out to, how that effected the biggest gears wasn't even mentioned.

'Blather' wasn't the right word to use. Sorry.

I think the philosophy here is simple: if you need to ask 'what gearing' then the answer is 'as low as you can go'. The chances are you won't need the highest gears but you may well need the lower ones.

.
For all the years I have been cycling and touring, I have never been bothered to get into the Tech stuff about inches, guess I have missed out somewhat.! touring wise I have just bought the cassette with the biggest sprocket and left the chain rings as the come with the set. somehow I have survived...LOL

And the benefits of travelling with an unnecessarily high set of gears are? ('Bragging on internet forums' doesn't count).

 

[Gravity Aided]

.
For all the years I have been cycling and touring, I have never been bothered to get into the Tech stuff about inches, guess I have missed out somewhat.! touring wise I have just bought the cassette with the biggest sprocket and left the chain rings as the come with the set. somehow I have survived...LOL

I think a lot of the concern over gear inches has to do with not repeating the same development over different chainring and cog combinations, as well as understanding the different gear inches available from differing chainring/cog combinations

 

[asterix]

..and if you are simply setting up your own bike you can try different size cogs without ever mentioning gear inches. On a cycling forum it is a simple way of telling others the gearing you have.

Much easier too, now t'internet has handy calculators for the job.

 

[iLB]

He has sold some of those bits, but I think I will just go for the crankset. Changing that and nothing else would give me a 25 inch gear, and having a 42 largest would be quite nice. Spend most of the time on the 40t middle ring at the moment.