Double or triple?

[winjim]

The other bike has the Racing Triple which probably was only supposed to work with a 30 tooth little ring but I found it worked with a 28 without any problems. Now it has a 26 ring and I don't have any problem getting the chain up from the 26 to the 39. Sometimes going the other way, the chain dropped past the 26. Careful adjustment of the derailleur endstop prevents that happening most of the time. It usually happened when getting into a flap on a steep hill and desperately trying to throw the chain down onto the small ring at the last moment. By planning ahead and shifting down more gently before the gradient really starts to bite, problems are rare. I have put a Deda Dog Fang chain catcher on which stops the chain getting stuck between the ring and the bottom bracket area those rare times when I do fluff the change. It isn't absolutely perfect, but I can go several rides without dropping the chain. I consider that a small price to pay for the wide spread of gears that I have with which to tackle my steep local hills.

In that case I might consider 28 as my lowest option. It's for a hybrid to be ridden by myself and my wife so I don't want to have to overthink the shifting technique. It's probably not possible with the flat bar shifters I've got anyway.

Now I just need to finalise which combination of either Campagnolo triple (30-40-52) or Stronglight impact (28-38-48) with 13-26 or 13-29 cassette and long or medium cage to use. So many different ways to achieve essentially the same thing!

I don't know if this still applies to current Campagnolo Ergopower shifters (mine are over 10 years old) but my left shifters have at least 10 index stops with enough range to cover a triple chainset as standard.

IIRC Quickshift goes click click click trim clunk trim, Ultrashift goes clickyclicky ratchetyratchet (like yours) and Powershift goes click click clunk trim trim. I don't think US is designed to work with a triple although I expect you could bodge it. I'll be interested to see how these flat bar ergos shift. They're Quickshift compatible but I don't think they have trim. Campagnolo discontinued them pretty quickly and I wonder if maybe it's because they were a bit rubbish.

 

[smutchin]

Hi guys I live near Holmfirth west Yorks I have just managed to get up Holme moss but I was on my last gear near the top!

Thanks guys I am 89 kg at the mo having come down from 128kg so I still hope to come down a bit more.

Holme Moss may not be the toughest climb in the world but 2.2km at 9% average is plenty tough enough for a newbie cyclist weighing 89kg. You're already doing very well to be able to get up it without walking. And the good news is that if you continue to lose weight (well done on that too, by the way) it will only get easier (or you will get faster).

Based on your progress to date, I say you don't need a triple. If you want a triple, fine, but want and need are different matters. I started off with a triple when I got back into road cycling after a few years off but soon came to realise I didn't need it. I wouldn't go back to a triple now, not for a road bike.

I just find it crazy that a triple is so 'unfashionable'...

If you're talking about fashion, it's worth noting that the current trend is for 1x groupsets (ie with only a single chainring). If you're struggling with hills, you don't need more gears, you need the right gears. Having a large number of closely spaced ratios is vastly overrated - fine if you're a racing cyclist who is trained to change gear every few seconds to maintain optimum cadence, but if you're not a racing cyclist, what's the point?

Vive la simplicité!