Compact chainsets .. what the heck is going on?

jgsi

Buying a bike off the peg is obviously the quickest way of getting 2 wheels...
but , lets take the cannondale range... caad10 or supersix... bikes that have a leaning towards being raced and not sportived or leisured... why oh why are they delivered with just compact and not a standard double?
Really don't understand.
I do understand that a decent retailer would swap out the chainset upon request, but extra faff to arrange.

anyone in the trade like to give insight?

rokkala

Because those affluent mamils like to try and emulate the pros they see, even if that means riding a race bike with upturned stem etc. So they are just reacting to the market needs....

Like you said, no big deal to swap out. Gear inches are gear inches anyway.

centimani

It did occur to me, living on the edge of the Fens which are as flat as a pancake...why you are stuck with a compact :roll:
You're not of course, the bike i wanted just happened to be fitted with one, there were other standard chainsets on other bikes, but i wanted this one.
Anyway... like me, if you dont want a compact 34/36 inner ring, its cheap enough to put a 38/39 or 40 inner on. I guess thats occured to the manufacturers, they're quick enough to adapt to your strength or terrain.

danowat

Compact's give a better spread of gears, you'd have to be pretty rapid to run out of gearing on a compact.

I run a compact on two of my road bikes, and have yet to run out of gears, and a double on my TT bike, which I have run out of gears on a number of times, and am now in the market for a 55T ring.

For a road bike, a compact is more than sufficient.

furrag

A 14 year old youth rider in our club who entered a 4th cat race (shouldn't have been allowed to!) got second place (iirc) at a standard Hillingdon bunch sprint finish in a 48x15.

50x11 is bigger than 53x12. As above though, it's not all about the gear inches.

waterford123

I agree with danowat.

I used to moan about running out of gears going down hills in Cornwall when I was an impressionable youth until a then first cat told me to 'turn my legs faster' it's a kernel of wisdom I've tried to adopt for the last 24 years.

nferrar

I'm surprised none of the big three do something similar to the Look ZED2 chainset, which has bolt holes for both compact and standard BCD, I can't see it would cost that much more to manufacture and they'd only have to tool-up for one model.

markos1963

nferrar wrote:

I'm surprised none of the big three do something similar to the Look ZED2 chainset, which has bolt holes for both compact and standard BCD, I can't see it would cost that much more to manufacture and they'd only have to tool-up for one model.

Pointless as you can get 53/39 rings with 110 BCD(and a whole load of other sizes)
I have a compact on my road bike and find the 50 ring more than ample, I have a 36 on the inner now as I don't like the big jump to a 34.

amaferanga

danowat wrote:

Compact's give a better spread of gears, you'd have to be pretty rapid to run out of gearing on a compact.

I run a compact on two of my road bikes, and have yet to run out of gears, and a double on my TT bike, which I have run out of gears on a number of times, and am now in the market for a 55T ring.

For a road bike, a compact is more than sufficient.

Top end may be okay, but I found the standard compact ratio of 34/50 meant I always seemed to be switching between the big and small rings (which then requires shifting up or down 3 sprockets at the back). I just don't find the same with a standard double. A 50 with a 36 or 38 would probably work much better.

Berk Bonebonce

JGSI wrote:

why oh why are they delivered with just compact and not a standard double?

Because those same bikes are sold in areas of Europe and North America that are a lot hillier than North Staffs.

Chris McG

Furrag wrote:

A 14 year old youth rider in our club who entered a 4th cat race got second place at a standard Hillingdon bunch sprint finish in a 48x15.

who's that then?

btw i'm a youth rider and i'm faster on youth gearing than my dad with a 53x11 gear