front chain ring suggestions for a 9 speed 29 er

hocombewood

hi, having sold my Genesis IOID to fund building a 29er with rigid forks. I am mainly doing gravel tracks and not much downhill. I want to convert the bike from 27 speed to 9 speed. I've got a 11-34 rear cassette and XTR long mech. Is there a typical front chain ring to use with this sort of set up ? I am a bit of a fat b4rstard so 53 front might be pushing it a bit on the climbs Just interested in if there is a program that works out what ratios work well ? I was thinking 36 or 38 front or maybe a 44 ?

I apologise if this seems a stupid question, but just trying to avoid expense of getting it wrong.

thanks Jules

supersonic

There are programs such as this:

http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/

Your larger wheels will make the gearing harder compared to a 26. WHat did you have before, 42/32/22? Did you stay in the middle most of the time? How much did you use the other rings, and did you run out of gears?

hocombewood

thanks for the link. For the last year I've been on a single speed 34/16. when I had a 3x9 before I rarely used the granny ring. I'll check out the sheldon page.

rgds

mrmonkfinger

hocombewood wrote:

thanks for the link. For the last year I've been on a single speed 34/16. when I had a 3x9 before I rarely used the granny ring. I'll check out the sheldon page.

personally, I can't see any problem with a single 32 - 36 ring at the front then.

but check out the gear calc page - work out some numbers for the gears you know you've used before to get a feel for what the numbers mean.

The Rookie

If going from a 26 to a 29, you need to drop roughly 2T at the front for equivalence, so 34 to 32 or 36 to 34.

Simon