Help choosing a new crankset

This white paper is very interesting and is speaks to my one concern about 46/30, which is the large change in gearing/cadence between the large and small rings. Perhaps 47/32 is the answer but it's only 2 teeth easier than my 46/34 for a lot of £s

Jimbop wrote:This white paper is very interesting and is speaks to my one concern about 46/30, which is the large change in gearing/cadence between the large and small rings. Perhaps 47/32 is the answer but it's only 2 teeth easier than my 46/34 for a lot of £s

That's what scares me too. Personally I would like to see not just more crankset options but more cassette options with a 10T small cog. 42-10 is about the same as 46-11, a 42-30 with something like a 10-36 would be perfect for me personally. Smaller jump, and for my riding style the 42T would be a better all around gear than a 46T I think. 

A 46/30 has the same 16-tooth difference as a 50/34 "compact", which has become ubiquitous in the road market and has proven to work great for over a decade. What exactly is your concern about that? What white paper are you referring to? I don't see a link to anything.

I've been riding compact gearing for over a decade and 46/30 for a while now and there aren't any issues with them. When you drop from the big to the small ring, you simply upshift 3 gears in the rear. Particularly with the Campy shifters I use on the road, this is lightning quick once you've done it a few times (the same is true going the other direction). It's a bit slower with SRAM and Shimano shifters, since it requires three presses of the shifter instead of one, but it's still not bad. One thing I don't like is how slow these shifts are with Di2, because it does the front and rear shift sequentially, rather than at the same time.

Why would you want 10-tooth cogs? They wear out faster, they wear your chain faster and they're not smooth under power. The only reason they exist at all is due to 1X systems that are trying to span the same gearing range as 2X systems. They make no sense in a 2X system.

If I had my choice, I'd rather have a 12-32 to go with the 46/30 or at least a 44 or 42T chainring to go with the currently available 11-32 cassettes. I really don't need a 108" gear off-road, let alone anything bigger.

bnystrom wrote:A 46/30 has the same 16-tooth difference as a 50/34, which has become ubiquitous in the road market and has proven to work great for over a decade. What exactly is your concern about that?

Why would you want 10-tooth cogs? They wear out faster, they wear your chain faster and they're not smooth under power. The only reason they exist at all is due to 1X systems that are trying to span the same gearing range as 2X systems. They make no sense in a 2X system.

If I had my choice, I'd rather have a 12-32 to go with the 46/30 or at least a 44 or 42T chainring to go with the currently available 11-32 cassettes. I really don't need a 108" gear off-road, let alone anything bigger.

I'm weird and I don't like compacts either. 

I've been on a 10-42 for a little over a year now, I personally have no problems with it. No wear issues and the Eagle chain smoothed everything out in the higher gears. But I don't want to start a huge argument. 😉 

I would like the gearing I suggested for a multi purpose bike, like how I use my gravel bike now. Sometimes I want to go out for a 3-4 hour road ride, or sometimes I want to go on a ride where I ride more offroad than road. Sometimes I want to climb on singletrack where most people would use an MTB. 

I have a 38T and a 42T chainring for my 1x11 with a 10-42. 

With the 38T if I go for a road ride i'm using the bottom of the cassette most of the time, and I spin out on asphalt pretty easily. Offroad it's pretty good, but the 38-42 is still not low enough for some offroad climbs (for me).

When the 42T is on it feels like the perfect "cruising chainring" for me both on the road and offroad. Not too big, not too small. 42-10 is not stupidly high, I actually use it, and I don't spin out easily. However I suffer on offroad climbs because the lowest gear is 1:1.

So I still maintain that i'd like a 42-30 in the front more than a 46/30 and i'd gladly try a 10-36 in the back. Or just go balls to the wall and combine the 42-30 with a 10-42. 

We are all different. I don't think you're wrong at all, and I don't think i'm wrong either. 😃 

Where we diverge is that I can't stand the huge gearing gaps on 1X systems, especially for road riding. That's probably because I've been riding relatively close-ratio road gearing for over 40 years. My current road gearing is 50/34 with a 13-26 10-speed cassette. That gets me up just about anything on pavement, though I may need to go lower soon, as I'm not getting any younger.

I find large gearing jumps in the rear to be much more of an issue than a 16-tooth jump in the front, but again, that's just me.

I like the idea of a 42/30, but I'm not aware of anyone making that combination unless perhaps you could do it with a Sugino crank. I seem to recall that their smallest "big" ring is 44t.

Jimbop wrote:This white paper is very interesting and is speaks to my one concern about 46/30, which is the large change in gearing/cadence between the large and small rings. Perhaps 47/32 is the answer but it's only 2 teeth easier than my 46/34 for a lot of £s

My 2 cents ... after you have studied the gear calc.......

I wouldn’t be concerned about the 16 tooth spread on the front, its pretty common, think 50/34. It could potentially be an issue, if for example you only had an 8 speed rear cassette ...... but I assume in this case you have an 11 speed rear cassette. An 11 speed cassette matched with a 16 tooth front spread is very common, and covers a range of speeds. Depending on your speed, its generally a two shift in the rear as you shift the front .....but again .....the gear calc shows all of this.

Lastly.... i would agree....if it were me...and it isn’t .... if I had a 46/34 now ....there is no way i would be spending money to go 47/32 ...... i would just go ride. 46/30 i might consider, if I needed the one slower gear i was buying (one, assuming the rear cassette stays the same).

Finally....best thing to do imo ..... go find an 46/30 bike with an 11 speed rear (ideally with at least an 11-32 on it) to demo. It will either ease or confirm you concern.

Ultegra cranks and 46/30 were both mentioned at the onset. I was able to get that combo by using an Ultegra triple. 130/74 bcd. Outside ring replaced with BBG and multiple gear combos available with that bcd. The bb30 was taken care of using a WheelsManufacturing adapter. It all works great.

bnystrom wrote:Where we diverge is that I can't stand the huge gearing gaps on 1X systems, especially for road riding. That's probably because I've been riding relatively close-ratio road gearing for over 40 years. My current road gearing is 50/34 with a 13-26 10-speed cassette. That gets me up just about anything on pavement, though I may need to go lower soon, as I'm not getting any younger.

I find large gearing jumps in the rear to be much more of an issue than a 16-tooth jump in the front, but again, that's just me.

I like the idea of a 42/30, but I'm not aware of anyone making that combination unless perhaps you could do it with a Sugino crank. I seem to recall that their smallest "big" ring is 44t.

Yeah I hear that a lot, luckily it doesn't bother me. I've had a few "temporary" bikes that i've flipped that had tight ratio cassettes but on my personal bikes i'm pretty sure I went from 7spd 14-28 to 8spd 11-28 to 10spd 11-36 to 11spd 10-42. 😃 I think it also depends where you ride, where I live it's pretty much constantly up-down-up-down.
And really i'm not racing anyone and most of the time i'm not trying to hold a constant speed or effort... But still a jump like that in the front... Dunno. Again, just me. 

Everything I mentioned is just stuff I wish existed, and existed in reasonably priced complete groupsets. 😃

If a groupset with the specs I want comes out at a reasonable price i'll probably go back to 2x but if drop bar Eagle comes out i'll probably just stay on 1x. 

There's also these Gearoop kits on ebay that let you convert 11 speed road cassettes to friendlier ranges.

The above linked one takes an 11-28T and converts it to 13-34T (13-14-15-17-19-21-23-25-28-31-34).

That would be interesting if I was running a 50/34 up front, but a 46/13 might not be quite enough on the high end.

Much thinking later and I've decided to focus on a new frame because the amount of difference, as people have kindly pointed out, is going to be pretty minimal going from 46/34 to 47/32 and I don't particularly want to go to 46/30 after reading the whitepaper on Easton's website (https://www.eastoncycling.com/media/Easton_GravelCombos_WhitePaper.pdf).  However, once I have got my new frame built up then I might upgrade the cranks and i think the EC90 SL is the one for me - super light, really configurable (1x or 2x), really nice looking 47/32 rings available and good looks to boot.  

bnystrom wrote:A 46/30 has the same 16-tooth difference as a 50/34 "compact", which has become ubiquitous in the road market and has proven to work great for over a decade. What exactly is your concern about that? What white paper are you referring to? I don't see a link to anything.

I've been riding compact gearing for over a decade and 46/30 for a while now and there aren't any issues with them. When you drop from the big to the small ring, you simply upshift 3 gears in the rear. Particularly with the Campy shifters I use on the road, this is lightning quick once you've done it a few times (the same is true going the other direction). It's a bit slower with SRAM and Shimano shifters, since it requires three presses of the shifter instead of one, but it's still not bad. One thing I don't like is how slow these shifts are with Di2, because it does the front and rear shift sequentially, rather than at the same time.

Why would you want 10-tooth cogs? They wear out faster, they wear your chain faster and they're not smooth under power. The only reason they exist at all is due to 1X systems that are trying to span the same gearing range as 2X systems. They make no sense in a 2X system.

If I had my choice, I'd rather have a 12-32 to go with the 46/30 or at least a 44 or 42T chainring to go with the currently available 11-32 cassettes. I really don't need a 108" gear off-road, let alone anything bigger.

Apologies - I'd failed to link to this:  https://www.eastoncycling.com/media/Easton_GravelCombos_WhitePaper.pdf

Interesting. This is the first "white paper" I've read that wasn't just a white paper document. Regardless, if you look at what's in it, they basically said a few things:

• Road chainrings are too big (no kidding)
• They couldn't get a 48/32 to shift well both up and down, so they abandoned it
• 47/32 works fine
• 46/30 works fine

The assertion that the 16t jump of a 46/30 creates too much of a jump in gearing when shifting the front is bogus, as anyone who knows how to shift a bike is going to shift the rear derailleur at the same time. I've been doing this for long enough that I automatically shift the rear derailleur as necessary without even thinking about it.

The only exception may be when cresting a hill (which they pointed out), but when you have gravity working in your favor, it really isn't a problem. I've been riding 50/34 on the road for a decade and have never found it to be an issue.

On the plus side, 46/30 reduces gearing overlap somewhat, providing more distinct gear ratios. It also reduces the ridiculously high top end slightly.

I seriously doubt that Easton was getting feedback from rank-and-file riders like us. Rather, I'll bet that they're reflecting the preferences of riders on their sponsored racing teams. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's not directly applicable the average rider. For example, I like having at least one gear that's lower than 1:1 for gravel/off-road riding. Perhaps that's mostly because I ride local MTB trails too, but there have been many times when I've been well into a ride on dirt roads with 17%+ grades that I've been glad to have some extra-low gearing.

Obviously, you need to make your own choices, but just make sure that you consider all the options and information available to you and look at everything with a critical eye.

That's crazy that 46/30 is bad but 47/32 is magical? That is some serious Magic Number marketing BS.

drwelby wrote:That's crazy that 46/30 is bad but 47/32 is magical? That is some serious Magic Number marketing BS.

😁😁😁 I'm such a marketing sucker - you can sell me anything if you stick a few numbers on a page.

In fairness to Easton, they're just trying to make the case for why they settled on 47/32. It apparently meets the needs of the riders they worked with, but that doesn't make it ideal for everyone. That's why it's good to check out multiple sources of information and try to get ideas from people who ride similarly to yourself. Also, keep in mind that pretty much anything can be changed and that no gearing is perfect for every riding situation. Obsessing over it will just take the fun out of riding. Make your best guess at what you need and go with it. You'll learn more about what you really need from riding than you ever could online.

bnystrom wrote:In fairness to Easton, they're just trying to make the case for why they settled on 47/32. It apparently meets the needs of the riders they worked with, but that doesn't make it ideal for everyone. That's why it's good to check out multiple sources of information and try to get ideas from people who ride similarly to yourself. Also, keep in mind that pretty much anything can be changed and that no gearing is perfect for every riding situation. Obsessing over it will just take the fun out of riding. Make your best guess at what you need and go with it. You'll learn more about what you really need from riding than you ever could online.

Good post and totally agree. Already greatly improved gearing from original 46/36 11-30 to 46/34 11-34 (11-32 on my road wheels). I wouldn't mind a tad bit more top end for when I'm feeling strong and want to keep speed up as long as poss from a descent. I've climbed up everything I've come across with current gearing but sometimes with a lot of difficulty and had I had bikepacking gear on I'd have been walking. Seems like 47/32 might work out pretty nicely for my needs

There you go, you're making an informed decision based on your personal experience. Nobody can argue with that.

FWIW, I run much tighter gearing on the road - 50/34 with a 13-26 cassette - though I may need to go to a 29 on the low end as I get older. I'm running Campy 10 speed on the road, which is why my choices are 26 or 29; they don't make 28 or 30. I wonder if they published a white paper on that?