Since building the 350 I'm loving it so much I don't want to stop riding it when my local lanes close over winter so I'm building some supermoto wheels on some hubs Steve at Totally kindly found for me
Of course the smaller 17" wheel and lower profile tyre will already shorten my gearing slightly which is the wrong direction for a road setup so I want drop as many teeth as possible on the road wheels
My chain tensioners are only on 5, they go up to 12 so must be room for losing at least 2 teeth, but can I get away with 3?
Of course only real answer is try it and see and I might just need to go bigger front anyway, but I'd like to start with the best guess and hopefully get it right!
Long post, TLDR: If my chain adjusters are on 5, what's my chance of getting a 3 tooth smaller sprocket on there?
I think you'll probably end up shortening the chain anyway, so I'd just get another split link so you can reinstate the extra links in spring, or just have a dedicated chain for each wheelset. Are you sure dropping 3 teeth is enough?
The outer wheel diameter change will be equivalent to between 2-3 teeth so that should even out OK. I'd like it to be taller but I do travel to the big island a few times over the winter meaning I'll need to make the swap a few times a year, so want to keep it simple as possible
If I really need more I'll just buy a 15t front as they're cheap and easy to change over, but realistically since I'm not upgrading the brakes making it much taller will only get me into trouble! Getting down from 70mph on those small rotors in a rush isn't going to happen
Just wanted to see if 2 or 3 was the answer, did some maths and with a 15mm link pitch and 60% chainwrap each tooth should add about 5mm to axle to shaft distance. I've defo got 10mm but 15mm might be pushing it
