XC Gear ratios.

[Rampage]

What sort of gear ratios do people use on their XC bikes, I'm buying a new cassette and wondering what size to get.
At the moment The chainrings are 26/34/46.
Cassette is 11-28.
Which makes lowest gear 0.92 (dividing chainring by cassette cog)
Highest gear is 4.18

I've always thought that low gear isn't low enough.
It would be interesting to hear what people use on their XC bikes.

Chris

 

[Andy_Brn]

Hi Chris,

I run an 11-34 on my main bike, purely because most of my off road rides are 40 - 50 miles and it's nice to have a gear that I can push, even if I blow up

Andy

 

[REKIBorter]

a gear that I can push, even when i've blown up

A long time ago I did a 50 mile off-road time trial. Towards the end I was having trouble pushing granny ring on the flat, bonked big time. To answer the question, I find 11-28 covers just about every imaginable terrain you could meet in the UK, unless you live in a very mountainous region and spend all day spinning small gears.

 

[Andy_Brn]

I run a 44/32/22 on my chainset.

As Reki said, it really depends on the type of ground that you're covering.

I'm on the Isle Of Man, and most of the routes are quite hilly.

 

[Anthony]

If you want to stick with 26-36-46, an 8-speed 11-30 would give you a 0.87 ratio, or 71 inches per turn of the cranks - compared to the 76 inches you've got with a 26/28. An 11-34 would give you 0.76 and 62 inches.

But moving to compact drive would immediately give you a 22/28 ratio, which is 0.79, or 64 inches. Or with an 11-30 cassette = 0.73 = 60 inches. Or with an 11-34 = 0.65 = 53 inches

 

[Rampage]

I forgot to say that it's a 7 speed casette.
I think my highest gear is ok, maybe a bit high.
It's the low gear that I'm not sure about.
I'd prefer a 11-28 to keep the ratios fairly close together. So I could just change the granny ring.
I don't want to change to microdrive as the chainrings have hardly been used and cost £75! I also like my 5 bolt Middleburn RS2 cranks.

I think I'll go with 11-28 and see if I need to change the granny ring.

Thanks

 

[Crayons]

Always run a 24, 36, 46 combo with a 13-30.

I seem to spend more time in the big ring and middle ring using this setup than if I switch to 28, 38, 48 with a 12-28 block (great if you want to out psyche your mates – they can't understand how you're still in the middle ring on the hills and pushing the big ring so soon on the flats

Besides, if I'm going fast enough to spin out a 46x13 on a downhill I'm already panicking about the whole stopping thing with retro brakes – can't see 48x12 being a good idea really :?

 

[speedplay]

I use a 11-28 cassette and a 24-36-48 combo and seems to have done me well over the years back in Devon.


I still use the same here in Northampton....just never use the granny ring anymore though!

 

[Andy B]

Non retro bikes ...22/32/44 & 11-32 or 11-34 (depending on which bike I'm on)

 

[terryhfs]

My modern bike is running 26-36-44 on an 11-28.

My old bike is running 28-38-46 (biopace on inner and middle) with a 12-24.

I never run out of gears on my 'old' bike, but I find I do use the winch on my modern bike - so maybe really low gears just encourage you to change down?