changing to a triple

carmo13

Morning all!
i,m thinking of adding a third granny gear to my cannondale, campy veloce.
can it be done? is it a big job and how much roughly would it cost?

RobFowl

carmo13 wrote: »

how much roughly would it cost?

Your self respect

72hundred

RobFowl wrote: »

Your self respect

Saw the thread title and wondered if anyone had got the slag in yet....


....16 min's before the slagging started, pretty good.


BTW: This topic's been covered a few times. Use the search function and look up conversion, triple, compact, chainset... etc. you're sure find something there.

EDIT: Ha! What ya know, I started a similar thread back in May of last year; http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055560377&highlight=standard+triple+conversion I went for a compact in the end in case you're curious.

tunney

carmo13 wrote: »

Morning all!
i,m thinking of adding a third granny gear to my cannondale, campy veloce.
can it be done? is it a big job and how much roughly would it cost?

You could go all out and buy a moped?

carmo13

CAMARADERIE
Main Entry: ca·ma·ra·de·rie
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from camarade comrade
Date: 1840

: a spirit of friendly good-fellowship

thanks for your kind words. i thought all cycling boardies were equal. obviously some are more equal than others.

72hundred

carmo13 wrote: »

CAMARADERIE
Main Entry: ca·ma·ra·de·rie
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from camarade comrade
Date: 1840

: a spirit of friendly good-fellowship

thanks for your kind words. i thought all cycling boardies were equal. obviously some are more equal than others.

Ah I wouldn't take it too much to heart! The standard to triple slagging is pretty common!!

Also if you feel the replies aren't friendly, again search works wonders for that too http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055831569&highlight=snob+cycling

Beasty

Don't worry about this lot

Someone who named himself after Robbie Fowler clearly fails the "self-respect" test himself:)

RobFowl

Beasty wrote: »

Don't worry about this lot

Someone who named himself after Robbie Fowler clearly fails the "self-respect" test himself:)

Says the man who called himself after an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical

Beasty

RobFowl wrote: »

Says the man who called himself after an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical

I was just too embarrassed to accept the "Beauty" nomination

cdaly_

carmo13 wrote: »

Morning all!
i,m thinking of adding a third granny gear to my cannondale, campy veloce.
can it be done? is it a big job and how much roughly would it cost?

Anyway, to be somewhat on topic, AIUI, you would need to replace your bottom bracket with something a bit wider to accomodate the third chainring. You would also need (probably) a 3-ring specific derailleur and left shifter. You probably need a new crank also to carry the third ring.

I rarely use my third ring (but I don't have anything much in the way of hills to climb) but I wouldn't be without it...

lescol

+ needing a long cage rear derailleur

doozerie

In addition to a new bottom bracket, new rear derailleur, new right crank, and new left brake+gear lever, you will probably also need a new chain as you'll probably need longer than what you have in order to account for the longer cage of the new rear derailleur (depends on a few factors though, but worth budgeting for the new chain just in case). You may also need a new front derailleur too. You should be able to dig out the specs your current parts online, which will tell you whether the existing derailleurs and brake+gear lever can cope with a third ring.

It would almost certainly be cheaper and easier to buy a compact double crankset instead. You might have to change the rear cassette too to achieve the same range of gears that a triple would give you, but you might not even have to do that.

There are other options too, such as changing just the smaller of your existing front chainrings and/or changing your cassette for one with larger rings. The best thing to do is to work out how low a gear you really want and then check whether you can achieve that with your existing parts - your rear derailleur is the main one to check as it'll be spec'ed for a maximum ring size on the cassette which will limit how large you can go back there. The rear derailleur will also be spec'ed for a maximum tooth difference between the front two chainrings, which will limit how small an inner chainring you can use on the front (the front derailleur will also limit the smallest and largest usable chainrings).

ROK ON

carmo13 wrote: »

Morning all!
i,m thinking of adding a third granny gear to my cannondale, campy veloce.
can it be done? is it a big job and how much roughly would it cost?

Dont mind these guys. One of them is a proven quitter and the rest of them are nearly men.:D
You will need long cage deraileur and triple shifters and a crank, Cheaper to buy the entire groupset probably.
I have a triple and a compact. I like the triple. Its not about the easiest gear, as I can get same gear inches almost on my compact than on my triple. Its about the following for me
(1) better shifting than the compact IMO,
(2) more choice of closer spaced gears,
(3) I like using the 39 ring when spinning and the 30 ring is a great get out of jail card on tough gradients.
BTW a lot of guys say that we dont have mountains in Ireland so you dont need a triple. This is bullsh1t and completely misses the point. Easy gearing for me is all about gradient and not length of climbs. There are 11km climbs near me that I get up in the big ring. There are 2km climbs that I use 30/25. Spare your knees and enjoy your cycling. No shame at all in triples. Many pros train on 34/25 FFS. That should tell you all you need. Way too much macho bullsh1t spoken from people who have achieved very little in cycling. I know where I stand in the cycling pecking order. I use a triple.

abcdggs

Macho Bulls**t?

I'll get my coat...

tyler71

Word of warning - I have a triple that I use for winter training and I'm forever having to retune the front derailleur to get it to shift smoothly between all three rings whereas with a standard (or compact) two ring it's a much easier and less frequent job. One of my first races got caught out and couldn't shift into the big ring - which did wonders for my cadence but was rather frustrating! If you go for a compact with a good spread at the back your lowest gear shouldn't be too far away from what you can get with a 30.

Russman

Slightly off thread,
Whats the best way to utilise a triple ? Do you go through the entire rear cassette while on the middle ring and then into the smaller ring and go up a few on the back ?

Joff

Russman wrote: »

Slightly off thread,
Whats the best way to utilise a triple ?

Frisbee, Paperweight, Garden Ornament

Russman

I guess I asked for that !!

ROK ON

Russman wrote: »

Slightly off thread,
Whats the best way to utilise a triple ? Do you go through the entire rear cassette while on the middle ring and then into the smaller ring and go up a few on the back ?

You can do that. It is easier to work out your gear inches and shift in a somewhat liner fashion.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gears/

doozerie

Russman wrote: »

Slightly off thread,
Whats the best way to utilise a triple ? Do you go through the entire rear cassette while on the middle ring and then into the smaller ring and go up a few on the back ?

In trying to avoid extreme chainlines, you should really not use all of the rear cassette while in the middle ring, in the same way as you shouldn't use the highest/lowest cassette ring while in the big/small chainring. You can probably get away with doing so, but the risk of the chain falling off or even breaking increase significantly. You'll also wear out your chain, chainrings, and cassette sooner.

With modern 10 and 11 speed cassettes, it is arguably even more important to avoid crossing the chain as narrower chains will suffer even more. It is obviously up to you to decide how much crossing you are happy to subject your chain to, but in theory at least you should not use the inner half of the cassette while in the big chainring, the outer half of the cassette while in the granny ring, and the two innermost and two outermost cassette rings while in the middle chainring.

If you stick to that, you obviously lose an awful lot of gears. Factor in the different front/back combinations that actually yield exactly the same gear, and you might find that you have less gears available to you with a triple than with a compact. Triples tend to need more maintenance, and tend to be more fragile, than doubles so when you take all of that into account a compact can often be a far better choice on a number of levels. Avoiding a triple is not always about macho bull****, although there is certainly an element of that too for some people.

blorg

A triple still gives you basically one extra gear either end compared to a compact. On the lower end in particular this is not insignificant. There are a lot of places where this makes a lot of sense; I would not put a compact on a touring bike for example. Shifting at the front although more fiddly is less "gappy" compared to a compact.

Compact basically gives you better shift quality, very slightly lighter weight and most importantly looks better.

If you are converting from a standard double though definitely try a compact (and wide-range cassette) before considering a triple. It is a far far simpler conversion.