aerojack7654
New Member
Hello everyone, I'm an older lifelong cyclist that recently had my beloved old yeti mountain bike stolen, and to try and fill that void, I picked up a 2015 Specialized Crosstrail (I'm riding more paved and gravel trails these days, my full-on mountain bike days are over!). The bike was in very good physical condition, apparently very lightly used. I was unable to ride before purchase
, but it looked good and the price was right, and as an engineer that's handled most of my own bike mechanical work over many years of riding, I jumped on it anyway.
For the most part the issues were minor and easily addressed, but as I started taking the bike on some of the steeper trails in my area, more and more problems with the drive train began. It's ostensibly a 3X9 arrangement, which in my experience is a negative, since getting the set up so that the entire rear gear set can be accessed by the 3 front gears is touchy and in my experience I usually ended up chasing my tail with adjustments, especially as the mechanism aged. I eventually had this problem on my yeti that started with a 2X8, or something like that. At the time, I decided to add an early SRAM 1X11, which I installed myself, and it made the bike much more rideable, albeit in less hilly terrain.
Sorry for the long windup, but I'm considering replacing the 3X9 with a new SRAM 1X14 drivetrain, but I'm worried that the 14-gear stack is going to end up too big to fit where the Shimano 8 gear rear stack was. It appears that the latest SRAM gear stack has thinner gears than the older Shimano, but I'm wondering what other folks experience has been. I've been trolling YouTube to try and get some info in this regard, but so far, no success.
Thanks in advance for any helpful information!
Jack
, but it looked good and the price was right, and as an engineer that's handled most of my own bike mechanical work over many years of riding, I jumped on it anyway.For the most part the issues were minor and easily addressed, but as I started taking the bike on some of the steeper trails in my area, more and more problems with the drive train began. It's ostensibly a 3X9 arrangement, which in my experience is a negative, since getting the set up so that the entire rear gear set can be accessed by the 3 front gears is touchy and in my experience I usually ended up chasing my tail with adjustments, especially as the mechanism aged. I eventually had this problem on my yeti that started with a 2X8, or something like that. At the time, I decided to add an early SRAM 1X11, which I installed myself, and it made the bike much more rideable, albeit in less hilly terrain.
Sorry for the long windup, but I'm considering replacing the 3X9 with a new SRAM 1X14 drivetrain, but I'm worried that the 14-gear stack is going to end up too big to fit where the Shimano 8 gear rear stack was. It appears that the latest SRAM gear stack has thinner gears than the older Shimano, but I'm wondering what other folks experience has been. I've been trolling YouTube to try and get some info in this regard, but so far, no success.
Thanks in advance for any helpful information!
Jack
