Tiny bailout chainring on Bafang for tad

HighPockets

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Aug 28, 2021
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Grunting home uphill with a dead battery, injured leg and trailer it occurred to me I needed a lower gear. My freeheeel range was small and I didn’t want to go lower than the 20 mph at 80 cadence my stock 46t chainring gave me, so that meant a second chainring. I was aware of the usefulness of holes not intended for mounting as I had screwed many 24t freewheel cogs to the inside of crank spiders in the old days for heavy laden tourists, so the five little holes on my Bafang chainring looked suspicious. Sure enough, some hidden genius at Bafang had made them the std BCD of available parts, and though they were not the standard hole size some ancient TA cyclotourist bolts and flat washers under the screws worked fine. The 24t is only good on the larger half of my freewheel cogs (my puny derailleur would not pick up the slack if I used the small cogs) but it works on the ones I need. It was mounted pretty far out so the chain line on a stock bike would have been a horror, but anything in an emergency. It was fine on my tad. It would not work with a derailleur, but I don’t use it very often and got pretty good at kicking the chain down with my foot.

Though the standard steel pie plate chainring would never wear out and was a great bumper if I ever ran into anything, it was a bit heavy and inelegant. Looking at my half century old pile of TA chainrings The Bafang angel was still over my shoulder. The BCD was the same! Again, the holes were not exactly the right size but a couple of Luna spacers, some thin flat washers and longer screws worked fine for the outer chainring. Flat washers instead of spacers made just enough room for the inner. I checked and amazingly TA still makes these parts…. even saw an aftermarket steel 20t on the internet.

Comforting to know the bailout is there to save my knee when needed.
 

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