3-speed cassette?

[Marty Gierke, Stewartstown PA]

Thinking of taking 5 cogs out of an 8 speed cassette and using a pair of the gear-clamps Riv sells to end up with a 3-speed. Something like 16-18-20 or close to that.  The idea is that for rail-trail riding I want minimal clutter, but would still use a rear derailer and single shift level. Using the gear clamps would help optimize chainline. Anyone try anything like that before? 

Marty

[Eric Daume]

I tried this once to simulate a three speed hub. It didn’t last long for me. The shifting wasn’t great, because the teeth ramps didn’t align, and the overall complexity was as a great as a 1x8, etc. that offered a lot more range. 

On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, Marty Gierke, Stewartstown PA <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thinking of taking 5 cogs out of an 8 speed cassette and using a pair of the gear-clamps Riv sells to end up with a 3-speed. Something like 16-18-20 or close to that.  The idea is that for rail-trail riding I want minimal clutter, but would still use a rear derailer and single shift level. Using the gear clamps would help optimize chainline. Anyone try anything like that before? 

Marty

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[Marty Gierke, Stewartstown PA]

Would it help if the three cogs were taken from the middle of the stack so to speak - not changing the ramp locations? 

[Joe Bernard]

Eric's right, you're not really simplifying anything by going that route, plus the gear range wouldn't be great. The better plan I think for 1x3 is a single cog in back with spacers or Gear Clamps, a Paul or Shimano tensioner and a triple front with fd. I've done it, you get nice big jumps for up/flat/down and the shifting is great.

[Patrick Moore]

I don't understand triple rings instead of triple cogs; much easier to shift in back than in front, and besides you get more gear ratio difference per tooth in back than in front.

I do agree that, if you are going to use an 8 speed cassette hub, you might as well have 8 cogs even if you don't often use all of them.

As for shifting mismatched cogs: indexing seems to suffer a bit with cassettes constructed from miscellaneous cogs from the big box, but IME it's not all that bad; sometimes you have to replace adjacent cogs to get them to work well together, but generally it works well -- have done this on a couple of drivetrains, 7 speed and 9 speed. With friction, OTOH, mismatched cogs -- and I'm talking about 7, 8, 9, and 10 sp, as well as Uniglide, all in the mix -- works very well, better than, IME, or at veryt least as well as, the old, pre- HG and pre-UG freewheels. I shift a home-made 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25 (or is it 26?) cassette on my dirt road bike made from who knows what mix of scavenged cogs, using SunTour barcons (old Dura Ace rd), and it is wonderful.

I've already had a wheel built for my 2003 26" wheel Riv Road custom replacement using a 1956 Sturmey Archer AM hub with 0.8654 / 1.0 / 1.115 ratios, basically the equivalent of 2 teeth in the middle gear range -- say 55" - 63" - 70". The (God willing) new bike -- plans to discuss with Chauncey next week -- will be adjusted to preserve the impeccable handling with road -- 28 to 32 mm -- tires, but hopefully also take 42s and fenders. I do ride the 28 mm Elk Passes on dirt already, so this new one may be a nice, close ratio all rounder.

On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 10:14 AM Joe Bernard <joer...@gmail.com> wrote:

Eric's right, you're not really simplifying anything by going that route, plus the gear range wouldn't be great. The better plan I think for 1x3 is a single cog in back with spacers or Gear Clamps, a Paul or Shimano tensioner and a triple front with fd. I've done it, you get nice big jumps for up/flat/down and the shifting is great.

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Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

[Deacon Patrick]

As others have said, that sounds overly complex for simplicity. Grin. More simple options:

1. ride your current cassette and just shift two gears at a time, or far less frequently, whatever works for you to not think about it much.

2. convert to a single speed via ENO hub and chain tensioner. This is "simple" only in the sense of riding the bike, as it involves derailure removal and likely a new wheel for the hub. Option one is your best bet.

With abandon,

Patrick (who rides two fixed gear bikes and one 1x11)