Ok
Oval chainrings.
Do they work, are you using them and if so why.
What’s everyone’s thoughts?
Jonboy
Really? There is a 72 post thread ON THE FRONT PAGE.
They separate you from your money really well.
I fell for it years ago, luckily I sold them for about what I paid for them. I did learn that I can ride effectively with a 53 tooth chainring and 650C wheels so it wasn’t a total loss.
I’ve got one on my single speed gravel bike simply because it was the only thing available when I building it up last summer/fall. I can’t say I notice much of, or any, difference.
Can be effective if you have a very low position with your knees right up to your chest (usually better dealt with by using shorter cranks), other than that they are a method to extract money from people who believe in things like wellness blogs.
There have been multiple posts over the years about this, including a recent thread from someone who took the time to do some sophisticated research in the use and performance and it showed there was essentially no difference between the round versus oval rings.
Conclusion: Round rings work just as well as oval rings, or if you prefer, oval rings work just as well as round rings or if you prefer oval rings look more boss than round rings or if you prefer round rings look more sensible than oval rings or if you prefer round rings cost less than oval rings of if you prefer you can’t install round rings incorrectly or if you prefer you have to be smarter to install oval rings, or if you prefer…
They make your bike go forward but that’s it.
Really? There is a 72 post thread ON THE FRONT PAGE. https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...l_Cycling__P7654493/
i love when people are polite in their response
There have been versions going all the way back to Shimano’s BioPace rings in the '80s (probably earlier than that, but those are the first widely marketed ones I recall). The concept seems intuitive: pedaling force varies by crank angle, so change the effective ring size to accommodate. However, lots of testing has shown no advantage (as mentioned); and anecdotally if they provided even a small (ex. 1%) benefit they would have become a must-have long ago.
The crazy thing about biopace, is they clocked the smaller diameter with the power phase. We thought we were genus bad asses, because we all reclocked them to get the large diameter in sync with the power stroke. They may not work better now, because of too much research… but they sure worked better in the 80’s, because we knew everything back then.
Do they work
They do cause leverage/crankspeed to change throughout the pedal stroke. It does feel different, but what impact it has isn’t clear. It does not appear to have tangible impacts on metabolic load in like-for-like efforts.
There have been versions going all the way back to Shimano’s BioPace rings in the '80s
Non-round chainrings have existed for just about as long as chain drives have been popular on bicycles. The 1896 book “Bicycles and Tricycles” by Archibald Sharp has a drawing of one, for instance.
Non-round chainrings have been around almost forever. Durham made one in the 70s that used to be advertised in Bicycling each month:
Just found the advert:
I believe that there were examples of non-round rings being marketed back in the 1890s. It’s strange that they never took off.
Now we’ve gone full circle back to the 1X 😉
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