FD for a smaller big chainring?

[Marty Gierke, Stewartstown PA]

Looking to modify my All Rounder build and hoping to use a 24/34/44 set up. It's a TA Zephyr crankset BTW. I can deal with the rear gears at a later date, but what I'm wondering is what front derailer to use. I have an old Cyclone Mark II that I think might work, and an older Deore XT, but it occurred to me there may be someone here who has used smaller big front rings and found a derailer that works well for that. The issue seems to center around how low you can go on the seat tube before the derailer hits the stays. Maybe it's no big deal if the derailer sits higher atop the big ring? I'm all ears. 

Marty

[Steven Sweedler]

Marty, I use XT 737 to shift 44-32-20, works fine. 

Steven Sweedler
Plymouth, New Hampshire

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 5:48 PM Marty Gierke, Stewartstown PA <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Looking to modify my All Rounder build and hoping to use a 24/34/44 set up. It's a TA Zephyr crankset BTW. I can deal with the rear gears at a later date, but what I'm wondering is what front derailer to use. I have an old Cyclone Mark II that I think might work, and an older Deore XT, but it occurred to me there may be someone here who has used smaller big front rings and found a derailer that works well for that. The issue seems to center around how low you can go on the seat tube before the derailer hits the stays. Maybe it's no big deal if the derailer sits higher atop the big ring? I'm all ears. 

Marty

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[Patrick Moore]

I’ve used standard, 7- and 8-speed era, flat cage road fds to shift ring combos from 52/42 down to 38/24 with absolutely no problems a-tall. Currently my 7402 Dura Ace fd shifts my Logic/Sugino 44/28 just fine. Earlier, the LX that shifted my 46/36/24 shifted a 38/24 just fine, and I didn’t even adjust the height, simply adjusted the throw limit screws; it worked fine even tho’ the LX fd sat a good inch above the “big” 38 t ring. Hell, I even got the 7402 to shift a 46/36/24 Brontrager Race Lite triple, 172 or so mm Q, by cutting off the outer limit stop; that’s the one I’m using on the 44/28, I just have to be careful not to overshift from the 28 to the 44.

All these derailleurs worked fine with 7, 8, 9, and 10 speed cassettes and 8, 9, 10, and 11 speed chains — I use a chain 1 gen newer than the cassette.

Moral: Most fds of any sort seem to work well with most ring combos.

On Wed, Jun 25, 2025 at 3:47 PM Marty Gierke, Stewartstown PA <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Looking to modify my All Rounder build and hoping to use a 24/34/44 set up. It's a TA Zephyr crankset BTW. I can deal with the rear gears at a later date, but what I'm wondering is what front derailer to use. I have an old Cyclone Mark II that I think might work, and an older Deore XT, but it occurred to me there may be someone here who has used smaller big front rings and found a derailer that works well for that. The issue seems to center around how low you can go on the seat tube before the derailer hits the stays. Maybe it's no big deal if the derailer sits higher atop the big ring? I'm all ears. 

Marty

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Patrick Moore

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

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The bottom of the cage on the ~25-year-old Deore LX triple FD on our tandem clears the chainstay by about 5/8" when used with a 48t big chainring, with less than 2mm clearance between the teeth on the ring and the FD cage. The difference in radius between a 44t ring and a 48t ring is only about half of the present 5/8" clearance to chainstay, so you should be fine with the Deore XT triple you say you have.

Nick Payne

[Marty Gierke, Stewartstown PA]

The XT I have is an M-730 ALPINE. I'll give it a go. And I do have a 20t chainwheel I've been wanting to use, so good to know that might work. Thanks all! 

[Shannon Menkveld]

Additional data point:

My 1985 League Fuji has a 45/42/30x14-26 6-speed half-step. (The weirdness was to allow low gears with the freewheels I had and a 1980 Suntour Superbe rear derailleur, plus I'd always wanted to try half-stepping.) The front is a Suntour AR double, since most triple fronts can't cope with the 3t gap.

No problems. Shifts as well as I do, with the exception of upshifting from the 30t granny to the 42t middle ring, which is best done with a light hand and a lighter leg. (And when was the last time you needed that shift RIGHT NOW? Me neither.)

If I were going wider than this, or if there'd been one in the bin at the co-op when I built the bike, I'd have used a half-step-specific Deore. (Half-step counterpart

to the "Alpine" shown above.)

Bottom line, you can get away with a hell of a lot, as long as you're not front indexing.

--Shannon