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sacredhart
Depends on your definitions of "smaller" and "shift OK" :)
At the limit, the dérailleur hits the chainstay, which is not OK. I have used an old school Super Record FD with 42/28 back in the days when chainrings didn't have any fancy shifting aids, and it was more than ridable, but kids today have been spoiled by front dérailleurs which actually work well, so you might not be so easily pleased. With friction shifting, you can always use an MTB FD, which has a cage profile properly suited to smaller rings, but you can't go with a close ratio because the dropped inner plate usually means a minimum difference of 12T, e.g. 44/32 is fine, but 42/32 needs the dérailleur to run further from the big ring than is ideal in order to avoid crashing the inner ring.