Who uses a 54-42 chain ring for their tri/racing bike? I am still on 53/39 but am considering moving up. Would be pleased to hear ur experience.
thanx.
That would be me. I live in hilly Tallahassee, use a 12-23 cogset and love the gears and the front shifting.
Compact cranks? We don’t need no stinkin’ compact cranks!
Do you feel you need that extra tooth on the big ring? All you’re really doing is cutting off the lower gears.
I’ve run 42 and 44 with a 53. No shifting problems, and is quite nice for the flatter courses. Have to change the ring for the steep stuff though. There is a lot of gear overlap when the rings get closer together. i.e you have the same gear inches at some point on both rings. Having said that, you also get smaller differences between gears so it’s easier to maintain the same cadence, although you have to change the front ring more often to get the full effect.
Personally I think it’s not really nessesary since the advent of the straight through 11-21 cassette.
My two cents
I am on 39/53 on the front and 12-25 on the back. I feel like i am always running out of gear. So u r saying if i switch to 11-23 at the back, it would have the same effect of going 54-42 in the front?
Not exactly. 53x11 is a bigger gear than 54x12. By going to a 44 or 42 up front you would lose the lower gears for climbing, meaning the whole gearbox would have a shorter range from biggest gear to smallest. However, if you feel that you are running out of gears you either have a slow cadence or happilly do 30mph plus, assuming 700c wheels. If you want a slight upward gearing adjustment go for the 54 ring. If you want a more pronounced gearing adjustment get the11 tooth at the back. You could also go the whole hog and get both : ).
Visit Sheldon Brown’s gear calculator here
Play around with the different cassette and chainring options with the your preferred cadence to find what you think would suit you.
For example, I have two sprockets, 11 and 12, with 53 and 54 rings, and pedal about 80rpm on 700c wheels.
This means by pedalling comfortably in 53x12 my theoretical speed is 27.6 mph. In 54x12 it’s 28.1mph.
If change down to the 11 I get a top speed in 53x11 of 30.1mph, and in 54x11 it’s 30.7mph
Hope this helps.
I ride that combo on 650 wheels…
Have that on my TT rig, the 42 is much more practical on flat/rolling terrain, and the 54 is half a gear different to 53. So if you sort of feel half a gear out, the 54 is good. I think you want a chain ring that keeps you more in the middle of the cassette, and for TT’ing, smaller steps in the cassette as well… You can also get cassettes that start higher up, as at the 11 end of the cassette the jumps between gears are quite big…
Unless a 53/11 isn’t a big enough gear for you, don’t see any reason to go a 54. On my TT bike I run 53/42 with an 11/21 cassette. Like the 42 for the small chainring as it keeps the gears closer. If the climbing is too hard, I can change the cassette to a 12/25. If there are climbs where I need something smaller than a 42/25, I use my road bike with clip-ons. Almost never get in the small chainring. Just for the occassional hard hill or brutal headwind.
Hope this helps,
Ric
The Felt carbon tri/TT bikes come with that chainring combo out of the box.
I’m using 55/42 FSA rings on my geared bike.
-SD