halfstep impossible?

gvw <[email hidden]> wrote in news:YurWb.529715$_x2.1123667@zonnet-
reader-1:

Quoted message said:

For halfstep I need some special road front derailleur??

Half-step made sense 20 years ago when freewheels had big gaps between their 5 cogs. Today,
cassettes have 9 or 10 cogs and small gaps so half-step just makes life more complicated.

gvw said:

Quoted message said:

For halfstep I need some special road front derailleur??

"Ken" replied:

Quoted message said:

Half-step made sense 20 years ago when freewheels had big gaps between their 5 cogs. Today,
cassettes have 9 or 10 cogs and small gaps so half-step just makes life more complicated.

I absolutely agree, but if our Dutch friend is determined to persist in this atavism, he or she will
need to replace the present front derailer, which is designed for a 10 tooth difference in front.

For half-step-plus-granny setups, you want a "double" type front derailer.

Since all double-type fronts are designed for 52/53 big rings, best results will require grinding
away part of the bottom edge of the outer cage plate to match the smaller size chainrings.

See: sheldonbrown.comderailer adjustmentOpen ↗

Sheldon "sheldonbrown.comgloss h.htmlOpen ↗" Brown +-------------------------------------------
+
| To escape criticism -- | do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. | --Elbert Hubbard |
+-------------------------------------------+ Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts Phone 617-244-
9772 FAX 617-244-1041 harriscyclery.comharriscyclery.comOpen ↗ Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
captainbike.comcaptainbike.comOpen ↗ sheldonbrown.comsheldonbrown.comOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Half-step made sense 20 years ago when freewheels had big gaps between their 5 cogs. Today,
cassettes have 9 or 10 cogs and small gaps so half-step just makes life more complicated.

For touring I normally like wide gears, like my current setup 44-36-22 rings 12-34 cassette. That
way I can adapt gears quickly in hilly terrain without changing the frontring. But at times I miss
the tight gears of a road casstte, great for flat terrain or wind. With halfstep I keep the big
steps but if I prefer a smaller step I can switch to the other ring. It looks convenient to me. Plus
the cassette is standard, thus cheap.

With crossover it's the other way around. Tight gears which are great for normal roads but you need
to use the front derailleur often in hilly terrain.

With crossover I'm looking at 44-36-22 with 14-16-17-18-19-21-24-28-34. However right in the midle
of my most used gears ( 50 to 70 inch) there is a lot of shifting necessary between 36/16 and 44/19.
Anoying. Plus the cassette will be expensive.

Quoted message said:

Sheldon Brown wrote:

(It's he thank you.)

Quoted message said:

For half-step-plus-granny setups, you want a "double" type front derailer.

Since all double-type fronts are designed for 52/53 big rings, best results will require grinding
away part of the bottom edge of the outer cage plate to match the smaller size chainrings.

So a standard 105 derailleur would not or barely work.

Quoted message said:

David L. Johnson wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

For halfstep I need some special road front derailleur??

No, it should work OK. If you use STI, though, (I use downtube shifters)

I use downtube shifters.

Quoted message said:

The curve of the derailleur is optimized, probably, for a 42 or 46 big ring, so the 38 will have
more curve than it expects. You also have to worry about the inner plate contacting the inner
rings when you are in your "big" ring. But it should be possible to avoid these problems.

I changed a 44-32-22 to a 40-32-22 once. It shifted very smoothly. No contact anywhere.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

My seattube is 31mm, this makes a halfstep front derailleur not possible??

Quoted message said:

I can't imagine why the seattube diameter should matter in this.

I thought the maximun diameter road derailleurs can take was 28mm, my mistake.

I think I'll order a 38 outer ring and try the halfstep setup without chancing the front derailleur.
If it does not work out I switch my setup to 44-36-22, 14-16-17-18-19-21-24-28-34.

Thank you all for your replies.

gvw said:

My current gearing for my tourbike is a 44-36-22 crank with a standard 12-14-16-18-20-23-26-30-
34 cassette. Since my 44 alu needs replacement and I almost never use the high gears I thought
about replacing it with a 42 steel one. Also replacing the cassette with an (expensive) custom
13-15-17-18-19-21-24-28-34.

Why bother with half-step when you could have a closer cassette instead?

What about making up something like the following custom job:

14-15-16-17-19-21-24-28-34 with 48-34-22 ?

I use 14-15-16-17-19-21-24-27-30 with 50-39-26 on my tourer and it's PDG.

~PB

I said:

Quoted message said:

For half-step-plus-granny setups, you want a "double" type front derailer.

Since all double-type fronts are designed for 52/53 big rings, best results will require grinding
away part of the bottom edge of the outer cage plate to match the smaller size chainrings.

A shy peson asked:

Quoted message said:

So a standard 105 derailleur would not or barely work.

You want a standard _double_ 105 for this application, not the _triple_ model, even though you've
got 3 rings.

Quoted message said:

I think I'll order a 38 outer ring

Good luck finding one!

Sheldon "Outer 38s Aren't Arboreal" Brown +-------------------------------------------------------+
| I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility | of anything. --T.H. Huxley |
+-------------------------------------------------------+ Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041 harriscyclery.comharriscyclery.comOpen ↗ Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
captainbike.comcaptainbike.comOpen ↗ sheldonbrown.comsheldonbrown.comOpen ↗

gvw said:

For touring I normally like wide gears, like my current setup 44-36-22 rings 12-34 cassette. That
way I can adapt gears quickly in hilly terrain without changing the frontring. But at times I miss
the tight gears of a road casstte, great for flat terrain or wind.

But the beauty of triple 9-speed is that you can have both. You can have the near-equivalent of an
old-style racing block at the small end but with a few wider-spaced granny gears added. You *can*
have your cake and eat it. It's just a question of selecting just the right size sprockets and
chainrings that suit you to enable you to stay in the middle ring most of the time and use the
smallest steps at medium & high speeds (when you need them most). That is worth some investment in
custom cassettes & chainsets, if needs be.

Quoted message said:

With halfstep I keep the big steps but if I prefer a smaller step I can switch to the other ring.
It looks convenient to me.

Surely it's more convenient to stay on the same ring more of the time?

~PB

Quoted message said:

gvw said:

For touring I normally like wide gears, like my current setup 44-36-22 rings 12-34 cassette. That
way I can adapt gears quickly in hilly terrain without changing the frontring. But at times I
miss the tight gears of a road casstte, great for flat terrain or wind.

I can see the advantage of having a "looser" cassette when it comes to rapid changes in gradients on
rolling terrain or for urban cycling when you're accelerating and braking a lot, but it's not all
that much of a big deal to change up more than one rear gear at once. I do understand what you're
getting at but I just think on balance that halfstep is not as good as the ratios I suggested. To be
fair, there is no absolutely perfect solution; good luck with whatever you try.

~PB

gvw <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<YurWb.529715$_x2.1123667@zonnet-reader-1>...

Quoted message said:

My current gearing for my tourbike is a 44-36-22 crank with a standard 12-14-16-18-20-23-26-30-34
cassette. Since my 44 alu needs replacement and I almost never use the high gears I thought about
replacing it with a 42 steel one. Also replacing the cassette with an (expensive) custom 13-15-17-18-19-21-24-28-
34. This would give me tight spacing between 50 and 70 inch.....

Current triple derailleurs are optimised for 10-12 tooth differential between the outer cogs. So why
not replace the 44 with another 44 or with a 46.

Since you are changing the cassette anyway, you could make one yourself. With a 12-34 HG-50 cassette
and a 11-32 HG-50 or HG-70 cassette, you could remove the rivets and make your own cassette with
close ratios in the middle and wider ones at both ends (or at the bottom).

For example, on one bike, my rings are 44-34-22, and my cassette is: 12-14-15-16-17-19-21-25-32 On
another, my rings are 48-38-24 and my cassette is: 13-15-16-17-18-20-23-26-34

The result, on either bike is close ratios between 28 and 85 gear-inches. But an advantage over half-
step is that the mid ranges (44 to 65 gear-inches) are all accessible successively on the middle
ring, and ditto for the high ranges (55 to 85 gear-inches) on the large ring. With the little
overlap in the close ratios and the extra range offered by the 12, 25 and 32 cogs, it means I rarely
shift back and forth between rings, unless the terrain or the wind changes drastically.

See sheldonbrown.comgearsOpen ↗ for a calculator and sheldonbrown.comk7.htmlOpen ↗ for
an explanation on how to build one's cassette.

One often-overlooked problem with half-step gearing is that the chain will often try to ride between
the two closely-spaced chainrings. To make it work well, you need to reduce the spacing between
those rings, something I used to accomplish back in the day by simply bending the outer chainring in
(by bending the part of the chainring where it attaches to the spider).

In general, the closer the two chainrings are in size, the closer together they need to be for
proper shifting. A 7-tooth-or-greater differential seemed to work fine, but anything closer needed
some handiwork.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles chainreactionbicycles.comchainreactionbicycles.comOpen ↗

"gvw" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:YurWb.529715$_x2.1123667@zonnet-reader-1...

Quoted message said:

My current gearing for my tourbike is a 44-36-22 crank with a standard 12-14-16-18-20-23-26-30-34
cassette. Since my 44 alu needs replacement and I almost never use the high gears I thought about
replacing it with a 42 steel one. Also replacing the cassette with an (expensive) custom 13-15-17-18-19-21-24-28-
34. This would give me tight spacing between 50 and 70 inch. But looking at the gearchart I
noticed using a 38 tooth outer ring and a 12-34 cassette would give me a great touring setup. I
found a 38 tooth 94mm ring, alu not steel. Current front derailleur is deore xt. Current shifters
downtube.

For halfstep I need some special road front derailleur?? My seattube is 31mm, this makes a
halfstep front derailleur not possible?? Any help is most welcom.

Thanks for your reply.

Michel Gagnon said:

For example, on one bike, my rings are 44-34-22, and my cassette is: 12-14-15-16-17-19-21-25-32 On
another, my rings are 48-38-24 and my cassette is: 13-15-16-17-18-20-23-26-34

The result, on either bike is close ratios between 28 and 85 gear-inches. But an advantage over
half-step is that the mid ranges (44 to 65 gear-inches) are all accessible successively on the
middle ring, and ditto for the high ranges (55 to 85 gear-inches) on the large ring.

I need smaller steps in the low gears. I almost never use 44/12. I sacrificed the top gear for an
extra midle gear. I like the midrange but I suspect you use more cogs than I do. With the big ring I
use the first four cogs (sometimes 5) With the middle ring I use the middle 5 (sometimes 1 more in
the front) With the small ring I use 5 cogs.

Quoted message said:

See sheldonbrown.comgearsOpen ↗ for a calculator

I prefer easygear. www.bikepages.ultimade.nl

Quoted message said:

and sheldonbrown.comk7.htmlOpen ↗ for an explanation on how to build one's cassette.

It looks like I may have to build a custom cassette myself. Did you file the cogs openings to get it
on the hub next to the other cogs in the intended way? Or did you slide them together with no
changes at all? If so, did you notice any loss of shifting quality?

Thanks for your reply.

Mike Jacoubowsky said:

One often-overlooked problem with half-step gearing is that the chain will often try to ride
between the two closely-spaced chainrings. To make it work well, you need to reduce the spacing
between those rings, something I used to accomplish back in the day by simply bending the outer
chainring in (by bending the part of the chainring where it attaches to the spider).

In general, the closer the two chainrings are in size, the closer together they need to be for
proper shifting. A 7-tooth-or-greater differential seemed to work fine, but anything closer needed
some handiwork.

It seems halfstep is just to complicated for to small an advantage over crossover.

Thanks for your reply.

Pete Biggs said:

Quoted message said:

With halfstep I keep the big steps but if I prefer a smaller step I can switch to the other ring.
It looks convenient to me.

Surely it's more convenient to stay on the same ring more of the time?

It is. The bigger gaps in a halfstep system allows a greater range on the midle ring and thus you
can stay on that ring longer. However given the complexity of the derailleur setup and potential
unknown other problems I think I'll use a normal crossover. Halfstep is just to complex for very few
advantages.

Thanks for your reply.

Sheldon Brown said:

A shy peson asked:

I'm not shy. My email adres is my full and real name. It even hints at my country. Thats more than
most emailers reveal.

Quoted message said:

You want a standard _double_ 105 for this application, not the _triple_ model, even though you've
got 3 rings.

Thanks for the help I would not have thought of that but after reading various replies I concluded
halfstep is to complex for to few advantages. So I won't try it.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think I'll order a 38 outer ring

Good luck finding one!

I found one at www.sjscycles.com I bought a TA 40 tooth outer compact sice chainring in the past
and thought they would have a 38 for 104mm aswell but I can only find a 38 (and even a 40) for the
midle ring.

Since I'll switch to crossover gearing I'll use a standard steel (a bonus in my book) 44 and a
custom 14-16-17-18-19-21-24-28-34 cassette.

Once again thanks for the help.

gvw said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think I'll order a 38 outer ring

I commented:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Good luck finding one!

I found one at www.sjscycles.com

...or did you?

Quoted message said:

I bought a TA 40 tooth outer compact sice chainring in the past and thought they would have a 38
for 104mm aswell but I can only find a 38 (and even a 40) for the midle ring.

Sounds like you _didn't_ find one. :-(

Sheldon "Highpath Engineering Would Probably Make One For You, But Not Cheap" Brown +------------------------------------
+
| Love truth, but pardon error. | --Voltaire |
+------------------------------------+ Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts Phone 617-244-9772
FAX 617-244-1041 harriscyclery.comharriscyclery.comOpen ↗ Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
captainbike.comcaptainbike.comOpen ↗ sheldonbrown.comsheldonbrown.comOpen ↗

gvw said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

With halfstep I keep the big steps but if I prefer a smaller step I can switch to the other
ring. It looks convenient to me.

Surely it's more convenient to stay on the same ring more of the time?

It is. The bigger gaps in a halfstep system allows a greater range on the midle ring and thus you
can stay on that ring longer.

I understand the point but you'd need to shuffle front gears back and forth when the fine changes
were required. That's not convenient.

~PB