"turkeytickler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Does anyone know smallest number of teeth a double chainset can handle - Ive got a shimano 9sp set
at the mo with 39 on the bottom.....I want to avoid converting the whole thing over to triple if I
can.... but I want to get up the hills in the etape next year too!! I was thinking of putting
27-12 on the back but whats going to fit on the front?
shimano-europe.comcyclingOpen ↗ Provides details of gear mech capacites. But to save you the
trouble I've already checked and they state a 14 tooth max front difference, say 53/39, and 29 max
capacity which after deducting the 14 at the front leaves 15 at the back = 12/27. So theoretically
you can't go smaller at the front, in practice you quite possibly can if you are careful with chain
length and avoid extreme combinations of front and rear gear selections.
E.G. At the moment I'm running an 11-19 cassette and a 46/43/24 triple with a short cage RSX rear
mech on my winter bike (purely because the mech was kicking about and I'm too tight to buy new
long cage mech) so have a difference of 30 teeth and it works but I can only use the biggest 3
rear cogs with the 24 front.
Another, better imo, solution, which I've used, is to go to an mtb cassette with a 32 cog on the
cassette (11-32 in my case). You will need an mtb rear mech, which road shifters will operate, to
keep the top jockey clear of the sprocket but a cheapish model Deore at £19.99
<1> will probably cost no more than a new chainring and is more than up to the job. The downside to
this is the wider spacing between ratios but the upside is that it should (will) work
flawlessly.
<2>chainreactioncycles.comcategories.aspOpen ↗
echs+rear_Rear%20Gear%20Mechanisms&category2=Gear+Mechs+Spares_Spares
Pete