I always liked Half Step with Granny triples - 49-46-30 or 50-46-30 with a 13-28 or 30T freewheel. Occasionally I had to go to a 32T small chainring for chain length or derailleur problems.
I found that for me, greater than a 1 to 1 ratio was hard for me to easily keep my balance on a smooth road surface but no problem off road.
Depending on the seat tube angle, a Campy NR front derailleur could sometimes handle this combination. Ugly old Huret FDs were designed for these kinds of uses and worked very well. Same thing with the Simplex SLJ derailleurs made for triples.
Some of the OT late 80s MTB front derailleurs work even better.
Huret DuoPar!
The Shimano Crane GT was a little more classy looking than the Suntour VGT. They probably worked about the same. Campy Rallys? That much money for a Shimano Crane knockoff was beyond my vanity level in those days ( I have one of the originals in my desktop collection now along with a Gran Turismo).
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA
earle.young tds.net wrote:
> Speaking of combinations that shouldn't work:
>
> I used a 30-43-50 with a 14-28 rear shifted by Campy Super Record rear and
> flat slab Record front derailleurs. I just made sure to never go to the
> 30-tooth ring unless I was in the 24 or 28 on the rear. Because the rear
> derailluer has a stop to limit the cage windup, I could get away with using
> a lot of chain. It would just hang slack if I used the 30 with any of the
> smaller cogs. And yeah, I know the 43 was not the ideal middle ring. I think
> out of a theoretical 18 speeds, I had seven discreet gears, but a couple of
> different way s to get each one.
>
> Earle Young
> Madison, Wisc