Triple chainring riders poll

ROCK THE GRANNY GEARS BABY! THEY ARE AN OLD LADIES BEST FRIEND!

Being spotted off the big chainring is like your wife finding out you enjoy wearing high heels.

Then, if you got the legs for it....

I love my granny ... but I save it for the hills.

Big Virginia hills + rider who knows his limits = triple chain ring for me

And no, I don't like high heels, they pinch my toes.

Rarely use the big chainring, never been called gurly-man or slow, at least not on the bike. But then maybe I have the legs for it.

Not so sure about the high heel thing though.

Edited by the bear 2005-08-02 9:44 AM

I find that I don't need to use it as much as I once did and never have used it in a race. I do like knowing that it's there, however. Used to live in the mountains and there it was a must.

My winter bike, i.e. first bike, only has a double.

My summer bike has a triple because it is a Trek women's specific design. They all come with triples. I've never used it.

Jen

I use mine every so often. Didn't use it once in my first Tri last week though - a first for that course!

I rarely use mine, but when I try to attack some of the more notorious & brutal hills around here I'll go down to that gear. If I try to do steep hills in a high gear my knees kill for a day or two afterwards and I'd rather not cause myself that kind of pain.

I cannot ride up some of our hills without the triple. Most of the guys in the local area have doubles and most of the women have triples.

My new Felt has a triple chainring and I've been riding it for 2 months or so. At first I used it all the time but now not as much.

Although, I'm not a proud rider. I try and keep my cadence up and if I have to drop down a gear I do. Hell, if high heels helped me run faster I'd wear those too.

No hills around me, so I don't do it that often, but on vacation, sometimes it becomes a must.

I'm just starting out and riding an old road bike with a double. Living in a hilly Seattle neighborhood, the lack of low gearing is really a barrier for me enjoying and spending time on a bike. My LBS put me on a triple to try and OMG, now I have bike lust. Not going to spend any more money on gear, though till after my first race in Sept. For now, I'm grinding it out on the double.

i voted once per ride, but really only once per very long hilly ride... I hate to use it, but I kind of save it for when i really need it like I only get One Free Pass per ride, and by telling myself to slow down my breathing and focus on using my whole leg, I can usually talk myself out of downshhifting. At the end of the ride though, at a hill that looks scary, I sometimes use my Free Pass. There was one hill last weekend where I was down to my smallest gear and I still hit an all time low of 4.8 mph at one point! possum=hill slug.

I voted "never used it, wonder why I bought it". My old road bike had a triple, so when I bought my current road bike last year, I thought I needed it. In fact, the bike shop took the triple crank and front derailure off another bike for me. I NEVER use it, in fact, I make it a point to never use it, even if i think I need it. I wish I had a double.

Fat Guys Love Granny gear!

i'm really happy that i have a triple. then again, i can't go too far without encountering a sizeable hill/mountain. and my first olympic was wildflower (more hill than flat). and i've had knee issues in the past. and i'm not concerned about being percieved as wussy. long live the granny gear!

Had one on my first bike, never used it. We have two 12% hills here, and trying to stay big in the harder gears on those hills make for one hell of a good workout.

I used to stay in the middle chain ring all the time. After a couple of weeks I ended up using mostly the large one, and on big hills I drop down to the middle one. I think I used my small one once when I first got the bike.

I like it but sine I don't have any Alps in the neighborhood I don't use it often if ever. My next bike will only have a double and I figure if I hit a hard hill I can zig zag if it comes to it (which i doubt will never happen). in my opinion it's not worth the extra weight/drag.

Triples are an incredible way to effectuate low HR/high cadence trng on hills.  Without a triple, your hill training workouts would be limited.

My road bike is a triple, which I train on until about 2 months before my A priority triathlon race, which means I'm on my road bike about 8-10 months out of the year.

However, now that I spend so much damn $$$ on my tri bike this year, I'm gonna convert it to a road bike after IMWI so I can ride it in the off season and through the winter.

I live in Florida and I have triple. It's about as useful as the snowsuit I have in the atic! Maybe if I'm in Tallahassee and riding up towards the Capital it would come in useful, but even then I dont' know.

I used it all the time where I used to live. Nice big hills.

Now the biggest hill around where I live is the highway overpass. LOL! I've never been one to go all out and crank on those big gears. Did that when I was young, developed knee pain, had to go through physical therapy to get rid of it, now I spin, spin, spin. Still almost all of my routes from home, I use exactly 3 gears. Now that is flat! So I voted that I don't use the big or the little chainring. LOL!

Diane