Basic drivetrain queries for the roadies...

having just built my road bike up (only ever done mtb's before) i find it easier to set stops and b-tension screw without the chain on first and do it by eye. you will have to tweak it with the chain on but not by much. without the chain on it's easier to see the top jockey wheel line up with the cassette cogs.

great, thanks, that's reassuring. being fastidious I'd want it to be just right.

regarding the cables, am I right in thinking there's a gear shifter cable and a brake cable coming from each lever unit?

having just built my road bike up (only ever done mtb's before) i find it easier to set stops and b-tension screw without the chain on first and do it by eye. you will have to tweak it with the chain on but not by much. without the chain on it's easier to see the top jockey wheel line up with the cassette cogs.

and now that you've had a fiddle is it reliable and accurate? i'm the same- set up loads of mountain bikes but never road bikes.

great, thanks, that's reassuring. being fastidious I'd want it to be just right.

regarding the cables, am I right in thinking there's a gear shifter cable and a brake cable coming from each lever unit?

Aye:

had tiny adjustment on the front stops bringing each stop in to within a fag paper of rubbing which means i now hardly ever need to use the trimming on the shifter.
small 3 click adjustment on the rear mech. don't know what the proper name is but the cable adjustment on the mech, i only ever tweak this in the middle gear (5/6th cog) and look for a tiny amount of daylight between the outer plates of the chain links and the next biggest cog. this was probably just cable stretch.
the bike is absolutely silent and the shifting is instant. on the ride today somebody commented on how quiet it was unlike my mates specialized that rattles churns whirs and buzzes because the fsa cranks don't seem gel with the frame and the mechs despite him working in a bikeshop nobody can work out what's wrong.

Campag groupsets at least come with a set of instructions that just need following carefully to get the shifting bang on. First time I'd set up a modern groupset and I've pretty much not needed to touch it since then.

good news, thanks.

I cant believe I'm the first to recomend Sheldon Browns gear inch calulator. punch in your options and check your range and the size of the gaps between gears.
A good combo is a 50/34 with a 12-25 cassette. I always found 11-25 cassettes tempting, as it gives you a higher gear, but dislike the fact that the 16t is missing. depends on wether you would miss the smooth transition through the middle of the cassette.

11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 17 - 19 - 21 - 23 - 25
12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 19 - 21 - 23 - 25

The jump from 15 to 17 is 8 or 10 GI depending which chainring you are on.

One thing to remember is that cassettes wear out, so there is really no waste in owning more than one. I'm planning on going 50/34 up front and 11-23 (shortish fast rides) + 13-26 (longer or mountain rides).

NB: There can be chain length issues with using different size cassettes. But I would have thought it possible to use he same length for both. The highly crossed gears (which you should'nt use anyway) would be impossible to use with the larger cassette though. Ideally you would have two chains, but again chains wear anyway so you're not really losing out.

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.

The old days of 52-42 doubles where you could ride around all day on the 42/16 if you were in no hurry.

The new FSA K-force BB30 comes in a near retro 43-50.

im actually thinking about changing the 34t on my veloce up to 38 or 40. after a couple of weeks riding im finding it a little too low to be useful for me. im in the big ring most of the time.