You are reading a single comment by @gbj_tester and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
-
53/18 is pretty bang on
It's also a big increase in gear ratio. It's your funeral, but I wouldn't be going over 70" on a beater.
gbj_tester-
Yeah, I know. Today was the first time I've actually ridden a fixie and I found 70" was fine; it was much easier to ride at a really low cadence than really high, which is why I'm leaning towards a bigger ratio.
The caveat to that is that I was riding without a saddle, so now that I've got one I might feel differently when I ride home in a few minutes...
frankenbike
I also ideally don't want to buy a new sprocket. And if I do have to, I'd much rather buy a 16t or 20t as those are cheaper (it's a 6-bolt sprocket that fits on a disk-hub; there seems to be only Hope and "Gusset" whoever they are that make them. The Gusset ones are a lot cheaper but only in even numbers).
According to your calculator above if 50/18 fits with 1% stretch then my chainstays are 41.7 cm plus or minus n chain links. Which means that 53/18 is pretty bang on at 41.66 cm or so. I'm assuming that everything is modular so that if my chainstays are 1 inch longer and I have two extra links the results are the same? This is not technically accurate because the chain isn't going perfectly horizontal, it's at an angle.
Re. chain stretch; what's the proper term? It's not 1% chain wear because really the chain is 100% worn. "A 1% increase in chain length due to wear" is a bit wordy