50-34 with 11-29 or 52-36 with 11-32?

[wilwil]

I ride in a hilly area and Im not young. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these ratios? It's for a Chorus chainset. They both give a very similar low gear. I currently use 50-34-11-29 and only use the 29 when im tired. I do use 50-11 quite a bit. The larger chainset would keep the chain more central.

[gorkypl]

I live in hilly area, I am not very old and not the weakest with ~3.5W/kg. I went with 52/36 with 11-29 some time ago and from perspective I might have been looking at pros too much. Recently I changed cassette to 11-32 and it is better, I would do 50/34 with 11-32 now, soft gears are more and more appealing to me.

Maybe you ride with a very low cadence? I try to maintain around 90rpm and I run out of low gears much more often than I feel the 52 front gives me significant advantage over 50. But if you can maintain a proper candence and you feel 50 front is too small, then 52/36 with 11-32 is fine.

[TribesMan]

11-32 will have bigger jumps between the gears in the middle of the cassette...
Some people find that quite annoying.
Other than that, no big difference. 52/11 is just marginaly faster than 50/11.

[gorkypl]

11-32 will have bigger jumps between the gears in the middle of the cassette...
Some people find that quite annoying.
Other than that, no big difference. 52/11 is just marginaly faster than 50/11.

In Campy it's just first four cogs that are different between 11-29 and 11-32 (and 11-34 even). Still it's true there is not much difference between 52 and 50 front.

[wilwil]

I live in hilly area, I am not very old and not the weakest with ~3.5W/kg. I went with 52/36 with 11-29 some time ago and from perspective I might have been looking at pros too much. Recently I changed cassette to 11-32 and it is better, I would do 50/34 with 11-32 now, soft gears are more and more appealing to me.

Maybe you ride with a very low cadence? I try to maintain around 90rpm and I run out of low gears much more often than I feel the 52 front gives me significant advantage over 50. But if you can maintain a proper candence and you feel 50 front is too small, then 52/36 with 11-32 is fine.

Yes I ride with slow cadence about 70 rpm

[gorkypl]

In such case I would not change anything. 52 won't give you much advantage over 50 and 11-29 is better than 32 as it has smaller gaps in the four lowest gears.

[bobones]

Make your own mind up with some help from this gear calculator.

[neeb]

Smaller cogs & chainrings are slightly lighter, larger ones are slightly more efficient in terms of drivetrain friction losses...

[LanceLegstrong]

I live in hilly area, I am not very old and not the weakest with ~3.5W/kg. I went with 52/36 with 11-29 some time ago and from perspective I might have been looking at pros too much. Recently I changed cassette to 11-32 and it is better, I would do 50/34 with 11-32 now, soft gears are more and more appealing to me.

Maybe you ride with a very low cadence? I try to maintain around 90rpm and I run out of low gears much more often than I feel the 52 front gives me significant advantage over 50. But if you can maintain a proper candence and you feel 50 front is too small, then 52/36 with 11-32 is fine.

We are very similar. I would rather spin a faster cadence so I love my 50/34 and 11-32. The only change I've considered is going 52/34 as I love the low end I currently run, but would like a higher top end for downhills and sprinting. I know some people have done it but I haven't made the leap. I'm right around 3.9 W/kg so not super strong and have no shame with the lower gears.

[Moltobene]

Had the same exact setup options and went for the 52/36 11-32. I have a lot of steep climbs where I live and also went to the Dolomites this august and found the gear ratio to be very nice for me. But I'm coming from 50/34 11-27 11speed Athena, so obviously I got a better low end gearing now. Nonetheless, I found it to be a good and relatively comfortable climbing gear, even though Cadence was a bit lower than 70rpm on the steep parts of Monte Grappa and Passo Manghen . So maybe I'll get the 11-34 for the big mountains for next year.

[RussellS]

Campagnolo Chorus 11 speed cassettes.
11-32 = 11-12-13-14-15-17-19-22-25-28-32
11-29 = 11-12-13-14-15-17-19-21-23-26-29

Campagnolo Chorus 12 speed cassettes.
11-32 = 11-12-13-14-15-16-17-19-22-25-28-32
11-29 = 11-12-13-14-15-16-17-19-21-23-26-29

Looks like with Campagnolo with these two cassettes, ONLY the largest four cogs are different. The first seven or eight cogs are identical. So 99% of shifting on the most used cogs is identical spacing. And even on the big cogs the differences are fairly small. So your choice of these cassettes and chainrings comes down to a heads you win tails you lose choice. Or whether you sleep best at night with black sheets or dark navy blue sheets.

[gorkypl]

Actually, I have both 11-29 and 11-32 12s cassettes, and after moving to 11-32 I sometimes do notice bigger jumps on the low end.
It's especially 19-22-25 that is less subtle progression than 19-21-23, the two biggest cogs are bailout anyway.

While it's more a subtlety than any kind of deal breaker, I would go with 50/34 now.

[synchronicity]

When you say "not young", how old are you?
I am 44.

[FlyingDutchman]

Well I am 71, weigh 74 kg, and in a hilly region ( Eifel Germany) I use 30/46 with a 11 speed 14-28 cassette. The 28 stays clean, unless I have a 15% plus section. The high speed is good enough, not a lot of flat roads, and downhill I am quickly over 50 k/h, which is fast enough for me on sinuous narrow back roads. I like the closeness of gears.
When I visit friends in the Netherlands I have another wheel with 11-23 cassette.

Gearing is very individual, cassettes are not very expensive, just try things out.

[gorkypl]

cassettes are not very expensive

You clearly missed the 'Campagnolo' keyword above