Hows's 50/34 for non-competitive cross?

[rijndael]

FWIW: A lot of people like a 30T or 32T cassette not because they need those gears, but because they can use the 27 or 28 while maintaining a good chain line when in the big ring.

[Megaclocker]

FWIW: A lot of people like a 30T or 32T cassette not because they need those gears, but because they can use the 27 or 28 while maintaining a good chain line when in the big ring.

This

[mattr]

You'd never use a 50 in a cross race. Far too big.

Even the proper monsters of professional cross won't go much over a 44/46 on a pan flat dry course.
As I've said before, even a 44x11 is a massive gear. 108". If you can *properly* make use of a gear that big you should be riding the super prestige this afternoon.

[gummee]

The Euro CX pros are running 39/46 combos on their D/A Di2 bikes. I'm finding that the 46t may be *slightly* too big, causing me to drop below where my legs prefer to spin. ...which means I'm going slower than I want to be. ...but being obstinate, I'm going to concentrate on getting stronger rather than go to smaller gears

My 2 CX race bikes are both 36/46. The gravel road CX bike (Gunnar Crosshairs) is 34/50. Both work. I've ridden both on fast rides here in the DC area. I only ran out of gears w the 36/46 combo (11/25 rear) at the final sprint to the line at the RBC ride. Otherwise, while I was pretty far down the cassette, I wasn't out of gears.

IIRC I *may* have raced a 34/50 combo in one race before I got smaller rings. WAY too big for the stop/start nature of CX

HTH

M