SS Cross gearing

[Pedro]

Anyone have any suggestions for a good gearing to use on a SS cross bike? Needs to be able to handle some climbs, but sooner or later I will jump off and run anyway. So let me know your suggestions, or if anybody has a winning combo. Thanks

[JerseyDevil]

Are you running road or MTB cranks?

[Pedro]

Shimano Sora 170's, 130mm BCD.

[JerseyDevil]

You've probably got a 39 tooth inner ring on them. You can find a 38 if you want, but I'd go 39-20. The lighter wheels and thinner tires offer less rolling resistance than an MTB set-up, and since the tires are thinner, they won't gunk up as much and they'll slice through the muck better. The only problem is hills. If you're going to race, I'd opt for more speed in the flats since dismounts at hills are best anyway. If there's a lot of barriers, you might want to gear higher to get quicker acceleration to get your speed back up between each dismount.

It's hard to find bigger freewheels. With a 130 road sizing, your smallest ring could be a 38 as far as I know. If your Sora is a triple, no one makes any big rings for the inner gear, so that kills that idea. At 39-20, you're pretty much maxing the lower end of the ratios out.