Oval chainrings and clean shifting

jgsi

Intrigued by the claims of oval rings... however more importantly to me is clean shifting on the FD.
Whats the real world experience of those who have them.
I know I should but I just cant keep everywhere, everytime in the big ring anymore and even when racing will need a front shift. At the moment standard rings with 105 gives very reliable shifting at critical times when under pressure.
Basically I can trust it 100% to shift without throwing off the ring.
Whats the experience with ovals?

jscl

Surrounded by ovals here. You have to be careful and it depends which shape (brand) you go for.

I've had the chain come off when changing gear at a higher cadence or under load. I've seen a chain wrapped around the BB area twice because it came off that badly.

The best advice is just to ease back the cadence slightly as you change and to try and change at the correct shape side of the ring to reduce the chance of it coming off. Also, a chain catcher never hurts. Depends how uncool you think that might be.

StillGoing

JGSI wrote:

Intrigued by the claims of oval rings... however more importantly to me is clean shifting on the FD.
Whats the real world experience of those who have them.
I know I should but I just cant keep everywhere, everytime in the big ring anymore and even when racing will need a front shift. At the moment standard rings with 105 gives very reliable shifting at critical times when under pressure.
Basically I can trust it 100% to shift without throwing off the ring.
Whats the experience with ovals?

I run Rotor Q Rings on both road bikes and have never had a problem with them. One bike has the usual 16 tooth drop and the main bike a 14 tooth drop. Both shift effortlessly and I have never dropped a chain. If you do, the FD needs slight adjustment. I check shifting even at the extremes of chain angle so small/small and big/big to make sure the FD changes throughout the range of the cassette.

jgsi

Cheers.. it was just a thought as those Dovals were at a pricepoint almost got them... but now they have gone up a bit anyways.