Drive Chains

footsie said:

How, complete newbie here and have lots of info from you guys

I have a cinelli xperience with a campy mirage 9s double drive chain, can I just swap the double for a triple or do I need to swap the whole gear system

TIA
appreciate any help you can give

Footsie

You may need to change the following:

[indent]crankset (of course)

bottom bracket with a longer spindle
rear derailleur with a longer cage (optional, but recommended)
front derailleur with a deeper (vertical) cage --

[/indent]As with many things related to bikes, you can spend a given amount OR 2x that amount OR less than the given amount ... it all depends on your budget and sensibilities.

You do NOT need to change your shifters.

Depending on the desired gearing, you can mount almost any crankset from a 52/42/30 ROAD triple to a 42/32/22 MTB triple. You can buy a TA (?) Triple-izer (?) middle chainring which allows you to attach a "standard" 74BCD granny ring, BUT the special chainring costs about $90US ... and, you can certainly buy a Mirage triple crankset for that amount of money.

If you are changing cranks AND not getting one of the fancy-schmancy Ultra Torque cranksets, then I recommend you consider getting a 130BCD (e.g., Shimano) crank because the Campagnolo cranks have an almost-proprietary 135 BCD which means that chainrings are less readily available at a reasonable price.

The bottom bracket SHOULD match the crank ... there are some exceptions where you can play a little fast-and-loose.

The longer cage on the rear derailleur facilitates taking up chain slack, but isn't mandatory if never TRY to put the chain on the largest cog when it the chain is already on the largest chainring.

If you use a 48t-or-50t largest chainring, then you can probably get by with the current front derailleur.

Have you already tried a 13-29 cassette to achieve lower gearing?

alfeng said:

Have you already tried a 13-29 cassette to achieve lower gearing?

I live in the Judean Hills as such I can climb 150 metres in 2km very easily and I am finding to keep the cadence up impossible, will a change of cassette make that much of a difference

ps thanks for the reply

pps I can see why so many people cycle I have been a runner for years and am geting in to tri's but cycling is so much fun 😄

footsie said:

I live in the Judean Hills as such I can climb 150 metres in 2km very easily and I am finding to keep the cadence up impossible, will a change of cassette make that much of a difference

ps thanks for the reply

pps I can see why so many people cycle I have been a runner for years and am geting in to tri's but cycling is so much fun 😄

This may be an over-simplification ...

If your current cassete is a 12-23 and you want to continue using it while using a triple ...[indent]A 30t granny + 23t largest cog (130.43) == a 39t chainring + 30t cog (130.00).[/indent]You can buy cogs separately, and an 8t jump is easily handled by most rear derailleurs ... so, you could simply omit one of the middle cogs and stack a 29t/whatever on the end.

Okay, there isn't a 30t cog readily available for a Campagnolo cassette, but a 29t is available ...

FWIW. I re-stacked my 12-23 9-speed cassette that I have to 11-26 ... the 26t is actually an "extra" Shimano cog that I had which I filed-to-fit the Campagnolo freehub ... someone else I know snagged my extra 34t (!) cog to stack onto his 8-speed Campagnolo freehub (he still has a 144BCD Nuovo Record crank on his bike ... he did change the rear derailleur). An 8-speed 28t Campagnolo cog will fit on a current Campagnolo freehub body ... modifying a Shimano cog is NOT an ideal solution, but it works well enough that I've thought about modifying an XT-or-XTR cassette to sleeve onto a Campagnolo freehub body.

Someone (Campagnolo?!?) actually makes a Shimano-compatible freehub that can replace SOME existing Campagnolo freehubs ... I don't know how much it costs nor which hubs will actually accept it.