Hi my (mostly) US chums. I have s 2016 Felt B12 with the 52/38T Vision Trimax chainset it came with.
I am now spinning out on faster courses and want to up my gear ratios and move to bigger gearing, say a 53 or 54 big ring.
What options do I have? I believe I am on BB30 with that chainset and so Shimano is out? Anyone else changed theirs and have any guidance. I want a good quality chainset without going mad, ultegra equivilent?
Cheers Jub
What cassette size do you have in back. You are spinning out on a 52-11? That is 72 KPH at a modest 120 RPM cadence… Going to a 54 would only get you to 74 KPH at 120 RPM.
Your current crankset is probably 110mm BCD, so I think that you can only get a big chainring on a 130bcd, so merely swapping chainrings is off the table.
You can put a Shimano crankset on your bike with a BB30 to Hollowtech adapter. Felt sells a number of bikes OE with Shimano cranks on BB30 frames.
You could go with any BB30 130mm BCD crankset. Or, put a Shimano on there. I recommend the Shimano only because you can put any chainrings you want-- they only have one bolt diameter for all chainring options.
Depending on your cassette and the gear you use the jump from 52 to 54 will make a difference between less than 1 mph to at most 1,5mph (at a cadence of 90rpm). If you are sure that this is worth the effort you basically have two options:
You’re coming from a 110BCD crank and now need a 130BCD crank to accomodate the bigger chainring.
You can change the bottom bracket to one that allows for 24mm cranks to be installed or add a 30mm to 24mm adapter cup and then you can go ahead and grab a shimano ultegra or any other 24mm crank.
You get a compatible 30mm crank like a rotor3d30 which is a common and popular choice. You can also pretty much go with anything else 30mm that your retailer stocks and that you like.
thanks for replies so far. Just for info my “spinning out” is anything above 90 rpm, my race average is around 80.
Honestly… I recommend incorporating leg speed drills in your workouts. At 90 RPM, you are topping out at 54 KPH. Going to a 54 chainring would get you to 56 KPH (33 MPH and 35 MPH respectively).
My spinning out is around 50% faster than my average HIM cadence. And, my all out max cadence is more than 2x my average HIM cadence.
Did exactly the same and have a 54 at 110 BCR laying around here (Germany) cause I swapped the whole crank (shorter but 53/39) and bracket.
(I prefer to use a little lower cadence at the same speed in result than spinning like a maniac, but that’s just me)