Cruising in Low Gear
I’ve now been riding my Catrike Expedition with the 24T granny gear since I installed it back in February of 2010 Granny Gear for Grandpa. It replaced the stock 30T small chainwheel. I also have a 26T chainwheel that I bought at the same time as the 24T. It was my intent to try the 26T after messing around with the 24T. I never did bother testing the 26T. I’ve become comfortable with the temperamental shifting of the 24T and we finally understand each other.
The 24T gives me the ease of climbing hills while towing Betzi’s trailer and in return I give it the patience needed when shifting from the middle 39T chainwheel down to the 24T and back again to the 39T. In particular the drop down to the 24T from 39T takes a little care and faithful fine tuning of the derailleur to avoid the chain dropping when making the plunge. No speed shifting allowed. The Granny gear makes it easy to go as slow as 2 miles per up one of our steep California hills and still maintain a comfortable cadence.
The low gear on my Expedition is in sharp contrast to the lowest gear on my Catrike 700. The Expedition’s low gear is 19 gear inches and the 700 with its compact double is 35 gear inches. The weight difference between the two machines makes up for the lack of a super low gear on the 700
