John, If you think that 26/42 rings and an 11-32 cassette will give you what you want, and you can pay for it, I'd suggest you splurge on the White or RH crank set.
RH and White cranks (except the m30 variants) go on "normal" square taper bottom brackets so you probably wouldn't "need" a new one. Though with rings as small as 26/42 you would probably have clearance to use a shorter bb and might want to do so. In any case serviceable cartridge bbs are fairly inexpensive. Cross chaining is a bit in the eye of the beholder. Some might say that by definition going big-big with a 2xn setup is cross chaining. Others may say its not a problem, particularly if your chianline is set up a bit on the narrow side. The small small combo can lead to chain rub on the big ring which would be more of a problem, but it doesn't sound like thats something you want to do anyway. I have a bike (fairly new) with a white industries 26/42 crank and an 11sp 11-32 cassette (sram). Rear sifting is sram force doubletap, front shifting is gevanalle burd with a bar end. This setup works very nicely for me on the kinds of roads and trails rides I mainly use it for. I find many trails to be "steep" and like having the ~21" low gear. I have another bike with a 28/44 RH crank and 10sp 11-28 cassette. Downtube shifters, suntour xcd rear d, gevenalle fd. For anything paved in the SF bay area I find the 1 to 1 low gear enough. (For doing Sierra to the Sea I put on an 11-32 cassette as a hedge against altitude early in the week and fatigue later on.) When drafting some of the faster folks I know the top end is usually enough. My raciest bike has a 32/48 FSA crank and an 11sp 11-28 cassette with sram etap shifting. All these bikes work great for the kinds of riding I do on them. I believe gearing is very personal. For me its a compromise balancing how low a gear I want, how big a gear I want, and how tight I like the spacing between gears. I go with a compromise that hits whats most important to me for the kind of rides I intend to use the bike for. On my "racy" bike I started with an 11-32 cassette, but I missed the 16t cog more than I appreciated the 32t so I changed it to an 11-28. If you are particular, you'll probably have to experiment to find what you like the best. One other caveat, with a "big" ring as small as a 42 the tail of the front derailer cage may hit the chainstay before its as low as it should be. An extra short cage fd like the gevenalle avoids that. Ted who doesn't think he's hardly ever been dropped because he didn't have a big enough gear, just not enough lungs and/or legs On Monday, November 25, 2019 at 1:58:30 PM UTC-8, John Bokman wrote: > > Thanks for all the ideas. > I have considered a white industries before. > I have considered a Rene here, also. > Don’t think I’m willing to spend so much, however, because I imagine it > would not only be the cranks, but the bottom bracket as well, no? > I think a 42 large ring and something like 26 small ring would be ideal. > Main thing is, I like to be able to use the big ring for most of my riding > (and be able to access the 32 cog with it without cross-chaining). I drop > down to the small ring only for the steep climbs. > > As it is now, I can’t get into my 44x32 without cross-chaining. I’m using > Grant’s Shimano Altus derailed, BTW. > > On Nov 25, 2019, at 2:16 AM, Garth <gar...@gmail.com <javascript:>> wrote: > > > What you're looking for then would be a wide compact double which are > designed for road bikes with their straight-er arms mid 140's q., One with > a 94 bcd like the IRD wide compact crank would suit you. It comes with > rings however, so you'll have to get another large ring. > A 110 road double also can work with a 34 small ring and a 34 large cog. > The low gear is about 2 gear inches higher than what you have. Sugino 901D > Mighty double 110 crank comes to mind. It comes with our without rings, > black or silver. Yes, that would be a 34/38 crank as you said you wanted a > 38 large ring. Having closely spaced rings works better than it sounds. > > I've seen both of these here for informational purposes : > https://www.bikehighway.com/cranksets.html#product_list_limit=90 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/topic/rbw-owners-bunch/YXcKNTpdKtE/unsubscribe > . > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > rbw-owne...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/cd5c42f4-a493-4682-86d3-b2a3ef324634%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/cd5c42f4-a493-4682-86d3-b2a3ef324634%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. 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