Yep, you're looking at a new 30 tooth middle ring and 40 tooth big ring. They are Middleburn rings of the Slick Shift / Hard Coat variety, meaning they are ramped and pinned (hence the "Slick Shift") and coated for durability ("Hard Coat"). The coating is weird in that grease sorta stains the stuff, but BFD... the gears do the trick!
Current cranksets were born in the 26" tire era and are typically 22-32-44 as far as tooth count goes. 29ers have taller tires (duh) and to compensate for the 10% extra diameter, a theoretically ideal crankset would have 10% fewer teeth on each ring. The crankset on this bike now sports a 20-30-40 set of rings.
I'll admit it - if I grew bigger muscles I could've stuck with the 26er rings. But the 20-30-40 sure feels nice when you're climbing the steeps. And - an added bonus - additional clearance under the big ring. So there's less chance of boogering up a rather pricey ring on a rock or log - a good thing.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Middleburn to the Rescue!
Yep, you're looking at a new 30 tooth middle ring and 40 tooth big ring. They are Middleburn rings of the Slick Shift / Hard Coat variety, meaning they are ramped and pinned (hence the "Slick Shift") and coated for durability ("Hard Coat"). The coating is weird in that grease sorta stains the stuff, but BFD... the gears do the trick!
Current cranksets were born in the 26" tire era and are typically 22-32-44 as far as tooth count goes. 29ers have taller tires (duh) and to compensate for the 10% extra diameter, a theoretically ideal crankset would have 10% fewer teeth on each ring. The crankset on this bike now sports a 20-30-40 set of rings.
I'll admit it - if I grew bigger muscles I could've stuck with the 26er rings. But the 20-30-40 sure feels nice when you're climbing the steeps. And - an added bonus - additional clearance under the big ring. So there's less chance of boogering up a rather pricey ring on a rock or log - a good thing.
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