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New Capreo system offers ideal gearing solution for small wheels.
The Scholz brothers developed Bike Friday out of the desire to give people the ability to ride their bikes more. Their primary design criteria included ease of use and high performance. To make such a feature-rich bicycle fit into an airline checkable suitcase, it was necessary to use smaller wheels, which have a number of advantages. The smaller wheels do alter the gearing, however. Fortunately, the gearing can be adjusted in a number of ways: with larger gears, a DualDrive internally geared hub, and with the new Capreo hub.
Two of these solutions have drawbacks. Using larger chainrings is difficult from a supply point of view. For a Pocket Rocket Pro to pedal the same as a traditional 700c road bike, you would need to use an 11 tooth cassette cog and a 60 tooth front chainring. Finding a 60 tooth chainring is hard enough. If you have a New World Tourist, you would need a 64 tooth chainring, which I guarantee you won’t be able to find. The DualDrive hub completely solves the gearing and shifting problems, but it is rather heavy, particularly for use on a performance road bike. The hub system is incredibly reliable and requires relatively low maintenance, but if a problem does incur, you may have difficulty finding a shop that knows how to fix the problem.
We now have an ideal solution. The world’s top components manufacturer has released a new hub/cassette system that solves all of the concerns associated with the other two solutions. Enter the Shimano Capreo. This system employs cogs smaller than the normal 11 tooth found on standard cassettes. The quality, weight and performance of the hub is consistent with Shimano’s reliable XT system while the standard 9-26 cassette is about the same weight and gear range as the XTR 12-34. Couple this with a standard 53 chainring and you get about 111 gear inches on a 406mm wheel! We have been able to produce different gear ranges by swapping out cogs. If you’d like to do the math yourself, you can compare various gearing options like different wheels, hubs, chainrings and cassettes (even on recumbents) through the calculator found at www.soulbikes.com/gears.
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 Walter is nearly a four-year veteran of Bike Friday and has worked in production, inventory, and customer service throughout that time period. Now he is helping customers by providing bicycles that cure their travel ailments. Contact Walter if you need sales consultation from a man of experience. Emailable link to this article: http://www.bikefriday.com/capreo For more information, follow this link http://www.bikefriday.com/gearing |