Skip the front derailer?

(Jeff) said:

I live in a flat area (Chicago) and use my bike for
exercise rides of 15-40 miles. I have a hybrid type bike
and I have sort of run out of gears. The gear I use most
lets me go 18.5 mph at my preferred cadence. I'd like to
push it up a bit, but the next gear has a big jump of 2.5
mph to 21mph and I just can't push that one. So I am
thinking of changing chainring and/or cassette to get
closer spacing.

I really don't need more than 7 or 8 gears, if they are the
right gears (in fact I only use 3 at the moment, not
counting the one I can't push). Is it possible to buy a
single chain ring and position it so that there is an
acceptable chain angle to all of the gears in the cassette?
Or is this too "non-standard" to be an option?

You can do that, but leave the front derailleur on the bike
to keep the chain from derailling.

Mark Hickey Habanero Cycles habcycles.comhabcycles.comOpen ↗ Home of
the $695 ti frame

In article <[email hidden]>,

Mark Hickey said:

[email hidden] (Jeff) wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I really don't need more than 7 or 8 gears, if they are
the right gears (in fact I only use 3 at the moment, not
counting the one I can't push). Is it possible to buy a
single chain ring and position it so that there is an
acceptable chain angle to all of the gears in the
cassette? Or is this too "non-standard" to be an option?

You can do that, but leave the front derailleur on the
bike to keep the chain from derailling.

Mark is right. I have a BMX with a 7-speed cluster and one
ring on the front. I had to add a front der to prevent
repeated chain drops. With the derailleur in place,
everything just works.

You don't need to connect a shifter or cable to a front
derailleur being used as a chain guide. Just attach it to
the frame and use the limit screws to position it.

The hardcore one-ring option is to go mountain bike style,
with heavy-duty chainguides including tensioning rollers to
bring the chain in tighter and full guards on both sides of
the ring. But I don't think you're doing 6' drops on a bike
with 7" of rear-wheel suspension travel, are you?

--
Ryan Cousineau, [email hidden]
sfu.cawiredcolaOpen ↗ President, Fabrizio
Mazzoleni Fan Club

Jeff said:

I really don't need more than 7 or 8 gears, if they are
the right gears (in fact I only use 3 at the moment, not
counting the one I can't push). Is it possible to buy a
single chain ring and position it so that there is an
acceptable chain angle to all of the gears in the
cassette? Or is this too "non-standard" to be an option?

Thanks, Jeff

A well-known Scottish bike shop does just that on a couple
of their city bikes. There's a couple of extra bits round
the chainwheel to stop it getting unshipped.

edinburgh-edinburgh-Open ↗
bicycle.co.uk/catalogue/detail.cfm?ID=19065

Jules

On Thu, 01 Jul 2004 08:56:25 -0700, Ryan Cousineau <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Mark Hickey said:

[email hidden] (Jeff) wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I really don't need more than 7 or 8 gears, if they are
the right gears (in fact I only use 3 at the moment, not
counting the one I can't push). Is it possible to buy a
single chain ring and position it so that there is an
acceptable chain angle to all of the gears in the
cassette? Or is this too "non-standard" to be an option?

You can do that, but leave the front derailleur on the
bike to keep the chain from derailling.

Mark is right. I have a BMX with a 7-speed cluster and one
ring on the front. I had to add a front der to prevent
repeated chain drops. With the derailleur in place,
everything just works.

...but there are bikes out there with only one chainring and
no front derailleur, nor any other chaintensioner but the
rear derailleur...and they still work.

Quoted message said:

You don't need to connect a shifter or cable to a front
derailleur being used as a chain guide. Just attach it to
the frame and use the limit screws to position it.

The hardcore one-ring option is to go mountain bike style,
with heavy-duty chainguides including tensioning rollers to
bring the chain in tighter and full guards on both sides of
the ring. But I don't think you're doing 6' drops on a bike
with 7" of rear-wheel suspension travel, are you?

In article <[email hidden]>,

Luigi de Guzman said:

Ryan Cousineau said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Mark Hickey said:

[email hidden] (Jeff) wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>counting the one I can't push). Is it possible to buy
>a single chain ring and position it so that there is
>an acceptable chain angle to all of the gears in the
>cassette?

You can do that, but leave the front derailleur on the
bike to keep the chain from derailling.

Mark is right. I have a BMX with a 7-speed cluster and
one ring on the front. I had to add a front der to
prevent repeated chain drops. With the derailleur in
place, everything just works.

...but there are bikes out there with only one chainring
and no front derailleur, nor any other chaintensioner but
the rear derailleur...and they still work.

A good point. I suspect one thing those bikes have going for
them is relatively long chainstays. The BMX LX has rather
short chainstays to start with, which suggests it puts the
chain through some rather extreme deflection angles by
normal standards.

But as David Millar can attest, proper setup of a TT bike
(which probably has longer chain stays than the BMX LX) with
just one ring also calls for a chain guide. Of course, these
days he has bigger things to worry about than chain
management during the TdF Prologue.

Back to the question at hand, you can try it both ways.
There's no penalty except possibly a dropped chain. I
discovered the need for a derailleur on the BMX LX
empirically.
--
Ryan Cousineau, [email hidden]
sfu.cawiredcolaOpen ↗ President, Fabrizio
Mazzoleni Fan Club

Luigi de Guzman <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The hardcore one-ring option is to go mountain bike
style, with heavy-duty chainguides including tensioning
rollers to bring the chain in tighter and full guards on
both sides of the ring. But I don't think you're doing 6'
drops on a bike with 7" of rear-wheel suspension travel,
are you?

Not quite, but the pavement quality around Chicago makes it
feel that way sometimes 🙂. I have a hybrid called a Fuji
Cambridge.

Thanks to all who mentioned the issue of the chain coming
off - that hadn't occurred to me. I was watching my DVD of
the 2003 TdF a few nights ago and saw Millars prologue
problem. He seemed like an appealing guy, too bad about his
current situation.

I really don't know what they were thinking when they set
up the gears on my bike. Not only are there huge jumps at
the top, but there is a ton of overlap between the large
and middle chain ring. And the granny gear is so low you
could go up the side of a building (not needed here in
flatland). Out of 21 gears there are only about 4 that are
of any use to me.

Jeff

(Jeff) said:

Luigi de Guzman <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The hardcore one-ring option is to go mountain bike
style, with heavy-duty chainguides including tensioning
rollers to bring the chain in tighter and full guards on
both sides of the ring. But I don't think you're doing
6' drops on a bike with 7" of rear-wheel suspension
travel, are you?

Not quite, but the pavement quality around Chicago makes it
feel that way sometimes 🙂. I have a hybrid called a Fuji
Cambridge.

Thanks to all who mentioned the issue of the chain coming
off - that hadn't occurred to me. I was watching my DVD of
the 2003 TdF a few nights ago and saw Millars prologue
problem. He seemed like an appealing guy, too bad about his
current situation.

Don't mean to change the subject, but where does one get a
DVD of the 2003 TdF?

-B

(Jeff) said:

Luigi de Guzman <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The hardcore one-ring option is to go mountain bike
style, with heavy-duty chainguides including tensioning
rollers to bring the chain in tighter and full guards on
both sides of the ring. But I don't think you're doing
6' drops on a bike with 7" of rear-wheel suspension
travel, are you?

Not quite, but the pavement quality around Chicago makes it
feel that way sometimes 🙂. I have a hybrid called a Fuji
Cambridge.

Thanks to all who mentioned the issue of the chain coming
off - that hadn't occurred to me. I was watching my DVD of
the 2003 TdF a few nights ago and saw Millars prologue
problem. He seemed like an appealing guy, too bad about his
current situation.

Oops, shoulda looked first: tinyurl.com3fvo6Open ↗

Let me amend, then. What is your opinion of the DVD?

-B

Quoted message said:

Let me amend, then. What is your opinion of the DVD?

-B

For the record, in case anyone else is wondering, I bought
online from World Cycling Productions. DVDs arrived in
just 3 days.

Its great, assuming of course you like bike racing. It is
compiled and edited from theoriginal OLN coverage, as
opposed to being a retrospective type thing where the
announcers already know what is going to happen. I think
this makes it more exciting. I was actually in Lourdes,
France when the 2003 Tour passed through, and got to see
some of the hoopla. But I didn;t see any racing or even get
to see much of the TV coverage (I was there on general
vacation and this was a coincidence).

They sell a 2-DVD set (4 hrs) which I have, and also a much
longer version with 6 or 8 DVDs. I thought 4 hours would be
plenty but it turns out I kind of wish I had sprung for the
longer one. A lot happens in a 21 stage race and it can't be
satisfactorily compressed down to 4 hrs.

I also have 4 hr versions of the 1999 and 2000 TdF, which
they sell as a package for a nice price. The 1999 one is
neat. On the first big climb Lance starts at the bottom as a
promising guy who is a neat story due to the cancer, and by
the top he is obviously a legendary talent.

Jeff

(Jeff) said:

Quoted message said:

Let me amend, then. What is your opinion of the DVD?

-B

For the record, in case anyone else is wondering, I bought
online from World Cycling Productions. DVDs arrived in
just 3 days.

Its great, assuming of course you like bike racing. It is
compiled and edited from theoriginal OLN coverage, as
opposed to being a retrospective type thing where the
announcers already know what is going to happen. I think
this makes it more exciting. I was actually in Lourdes,
France when the 2003 Tour passed through, and got to see
some of the hoopla. But I didn;t see any racing or even get
to see much of the TV coverage (I was there on general
vacation and this was a coincidence).

They sell a 2-DVD set (4 hrs) which I have, and also a much
longer version with 6 or 8 DVDs. I thought 4 hours would be
plenty but it turns out I kind of wish I had sprung for the
longer one. A lot happens in a 21 stage race and it can't
be satisfactorily compressed down to 4 hrs.

I also have 4 hr versions of the 1999 and 2000 TdF, which
they sell as a package for a nice price. The 1999 one is
neat. On the first big climb Lance starts at the bottom as
a promising guy who is a neat story due to the cancer, and
by the top he is obviously a legendary talent.

Jeff

Since those appear to be out of print, you wouldn't be
interested in loaning a sample copy to a fellow biker for
a nominal fee would you? Uh, just for 'review purposes',
mind you. <g>

-B