Chainring Advice

pechacheli

Morning

I decided to upgrade my chainset last year and went for a dura Ace 9000 52t/36t setup. Due to injury I'm struggling and wanted to stick a 34t inner ring to help on the hills,

I don't see why I can't but are there any issues I should be aware of by replacing the 36t for 34t?

Thanks

MikeBrew

1. Your big chainring may be ramped to only work optimally with a 36 T inner ring.

2. Your front derailleur may only work optimally with a difference of (Max)16 teeth between large and small chain rings

3.You need to check out what rear derailleur you have fitted and it's CAPACITY. It might mean that you could no longer use the small front chainring, small rear sprocket combination. This is because your rear derailleur may not be able to take up the extra chain slack that the smaller 34T front chainring would cause in this chainring to sprocket combination.
http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/quest ... derailleur

Frankly, you could probably "get away" with issues 1 and 2, but front shifting quality could be compromised to some extent. Also it shouldn't matter much if you could no longer use the "small-small" combo(issue3), as small chainring to smallest sprocket is best avoided anyway, due to the extreme angle of the chain it involves.
To be honest, your post really belongs in the "workshop" section.

MikeWW

What cassette have you got?
Might be worth changing that if you are not 12-28 already