You are reading a single comment by @gbj_tester and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@gbj_tester
Be aware that compacts are for people who ride faster, not slower! Basically, the little ring is too small to be useful on the flat, so you'll always be on the big ring, using something like 50/17, compared with the old days of 52-42 doubles where you could ride around all day on the 42/16 if you were in no hurry. I run 48-34 compact on the front and a 13-25 or 12-23 10sp cassette, and the inner ring is really just your bail out option for really steep/long hills. My little brother, who is slower than me these days, test rode a compact bike and couldn't get on with it becasue the big ring was too big and the little ring was too small. He uses a triple front, but hardly ever uses the big ring.
If you're not racing, the Campag 48-34 sets are the best compromise assuming you're riding briskly enough to be on the big ring most of the time, giving gears from 70" to 105" [67" to 99"] on the straight-through part of a 12-23 [13-25] cassette, and bail out gears from 52" down to 39" [50" to 36"]. However, the kind of mid sixties gears we all use on our fixed bikes for general tooling about require the chain to cross either way. To get those nice middling gears with a normal cassette, you need a 42 ring, and the only modern Campag chainsets which have them are the triples which as everybody knows are not cool.