An unfashionable gearing set up?

[GuyBoden]

The OP is getting a new bike.

That's a shame, probably nothing wrong with the old tourer.

 

[Ajax Bay]

what I'm trying to achieve

• Live an a hilly area so want a wide range of gears
• Gradients change quite often so I want to get in roughly the right gear quickly
• Occasionally ride in flatter areas and want exactly the right gear

Get a super compact (46/30) and and 11-32 cassette.
That gives you what you need (25" to 110")and can be handled by a medium cage derailleur - see this calculator:
http://www.gear-calculator.com/?GR=...5,28,32&UF=2135&TF=100&SL=2.6&UN=KMH&DV=teeth

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Get a front triple . A double will drive you mad with shifting front and back simultaneously. Triple far better for being able to just move up,and down rear cassette with odd shift at front. I’d advise 44 or 46t big ring, more than enough for speed on flat.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Get a front triple

OP is looking for an unfashionable gearing set-up, though, not an 'everyone's riding one' triple.
And I double shift on my triple (52-39-30): not yet mad sfaik. A slick double shift allows one to feel that all is well with the world and one's maths.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

OP is looking for an unfashionable gearing set-up, though, not an 'everyone's riding one' triple.
And I double shift on my triple (52-39-30): not yet mad sfaik. A slick double shift allows one to feel that all is well with the world and one's maths.

Triple are fashionable you are saying? I thought it was the opposite?

 

[matticus]

Triple chainsets:
been around forever
always stylish
rarely fashionable

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Apart from the dropouts being too narrow to accommodate modern hubs, limiting the choice of what you can do.

You really don't need a million cogs on your back wheel to achieve a useful range of gearing so long as you have a good spread at the front, and it isn't necessary to ride at exactly the same cadence regardless of road speed, as SS/fixed riders prove every day.
Most of the modern cassettes with a lot of sprockets have one or two really small ones that you are hardly ever going to use in normal cycling, and a couple of really big ones that you could just as easily achieve the same gearing with having a smaller spread at the back and a granny ring on the front. The middle sprockets of most cassettes are pretty much the same as what you would find on a 6/7 speed freewheel, without the extreme small and large sprockets at either end.

 

[GuyBoden]

Triple are fashionable you are saying? I thought it was the opposite?

I've got two bikes with front triples, I knew I would be the height of fashion at some point in time, it's just a matter of waiting 20-30 years.

 

[Reynard]

I've got two bikes with front triples, I knew I would be the height of fashion at some point in time, it's just a matter of waiting 20-30 years.

Likewise me. What goes around, comes around...

 

[matticus]

Is this like the way oval rings have come round again?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Is this like the way oval rings have come round again?

Oval rings are round? You’ll be saying round rings are oval next

 

[matticus]

I haven't got round to that yet.
I could also have elliptically referred to the other shape options available ...

 

[Ajax Bay]

I have a biopace triple just waiting for the right bike, saved when recently resuscitating for a son a bike I bought in 1997. The chainset was/is worth more than the bike (which got a MTB crankset as its replacement: for an undemanding COVID-motivated London commute).

 

[matticus]

I have a biopace triple just waiting for the right bike,

Yeah, they need the right bike ...


preferably with elliptical wheels.

 

[Ajax Bay]

the right bike ... preferably with elliptical wheels.

All bikes have two elliptical wheels; with a=b.