Road bike gearing

[Fnaar]

My roadie cost me a shade under 300, 7 years ago, and was therefore an entry level bike (Giant OCR4). I was 'coming back' to road biking after a long long break, and this bike was what I could afford at the time, has served me well, and hopefully will continue to do so. I've been very happy with it.

Now, I'm not a natural mechanic, and things like gear ratios etc give me a headache

So I've never before counted my chainwheel/rear cogs/teeth etc, and have been happily telling myself that I had a 'compact double' set up, which I thought it was. Anyway, the chainwheels are (I counted today) 39/52, and at the back it goes 14 16 18 20 22 24 28.

I've had both front and back changed once since I got the bike, and as far as I know the LBS put on what was already there. This is not a compact double, is it? This is a normal double... and does this explain why my friends (with standard triples) leave me for dead on the hills?

Anyway, I can still tackle the biggest hills Northumberland has to offer, I've done about 5 rides of 100 miles+ on it, and as I said, I'm happy with the set up (basically cos I know no different) but can someone confirm that this is standard? Would friends with a standard triple have any advantage? Or are they just better at hills than me? Would a compact double change things for me?
Thanks as ever
Fnaar

 

[accountantpete]

Yes a standard road is 53/39 or 52/39.

A compact is typically 50/34.

If you are anything like me (and I also use a standard road) then the bigger gears (smaller sprockets) tend to be under-used and really I should be using a compact.

 

[Fnaar]

Yep, I only ever use them on the steepest hills.

 

[cyberknight]

Well a triple will give a lot of easier gears for hill climbing ,with yours you need to find out what size chain set you have by measuring the distance between chainring bolts as shown below to see what variety of chainring you need.
Most compacts are 110 bcd.
After that you may need to adjust your chainlength.

Distance (x) BCD 5 hole chainrings
34.3mm= 58mm
43.5mm= 74mm
55.4mm= 94mm
64.7mm= 110mm
71.5mm= 122mm
76.4mm =130mm
79.5mm= 135mm
84.6mm= 144mm
4 hole chainrings
41.0mm= 58mm
45.3mm= 64mm
48.1mm =68mm
73.6mm =104mm
79.2mm =112mm

 

[gaz]

A triple will generally have a 30 tooth ring as the small one and thus they will have a nice spinny gear for the hills. So on the hills they will have an advantage but how much is depending on their cassete.

If you change down to a compact then you will get a 34 as the small ring rather than the 39 and hills will be much easier. But your big ring gies down to 50 (genreally), so you might loose a bit of top end speed.

It's strange how you have changed both the cassete and the chain rings once, normally the chainrings don't wear anything like the cassette.
I'm on my 6th cassette on one bike and still on the sane chainring.

 

[cyberknight]

You can get 52 tooth compact ring and a 34/36/38 small ring but if you tried to run a 52/34 i think you might have problems with chain drop as the tooth difference might be to big, i think 16 (50/34) is pushing it
A 52/36 would let you keep your top end speed and still give you a lower gear for hills.

 

[Fnaar]

It's strange how you have changed both the cassete and the chain rings once, normally the chainrings don't wear anything like the cassette.
I'm on my 6th cassette on one bike and still on the sane chainring.

It might be twice for the block, thinking about it... they weren't done at the same time. Front was done wheb he teeth became v worn a couple of thousand miles ago.