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absoluteBLACK Adds 48/32 Subcompact Ovals for 110/5 Cranks

The absoluteBLACK 48/32 sub compact chainring set.

Chainring maker absoluteBLACK continues to expand their lineup of round and oval chainrings to cover all disciplines in cycling. This also includes the broad range of cranksets out there. While they don’t cover everything, they recently added a 48/32 subcompact oval chainring set for legacy 110/5 bolt pattern, like older Shimano, Sram, and FSA cranks, along with Rotor 3D and 3D+.

absoluteBLACK calls the 48/32 “super compact.” The size is perfect for those living in hilly areas and flatter gravel riding, or anyone looking to run something a little smaller than a full sized 53 or even a smaller 50. For many riders, this is a perfect size. Think about how often you actually ride in your 11t gear. Is it mainly in downhill sections?

In testing, they found that a 48×11 combination was pretty close to one or two gears up with larger chainrings. At 90rpm with a 700x25mm tire, they calculated that a 48×11 is slightly faster than a 52×12 or 53×13 at 30.9mph. When you increase to 100rpm, the 48×11 is calculated at 34.3mph. For most riders, this is plenty of gear.

The inner 32 chainring

On the other side of things, the 32 inner chainring makes for a heck of a climbing gear. When paired with  a 11-28, you have almost a 1:1 gear ratio to climb the steepest of hills. When paired with even larger cassettes and long cage rear derailleurs, you don’t need to be a World Tour rider to conquer Alpe d’Huez.

Personally, I’ve spent most of the fall riding a 42×11-36 set up on the road while preparing for cyclocross season. If I were racing road, I’d want something bigger, but for training, there weren’t many times that I felt I needed more than that on either end. Going back to a 53/39 with an 11-28 cassette, there were times I was missing the 1x set up, and not many times I made it into the 53×11 that I wasn’t going down hill.

Oval chainrings definitely have benefits. Personally, I have been riding them for a few years now for road, cyclocross, and even on a mountain bike I had for a short period of time. For loose terrain, the oval helps smooth out your pedal stroke and reduces the peaks and valleys of power as you move through the dead zones at the top and bottom of your stroke. On the road, the smoother pedal stroke helps keep you fresher for longer. I’ve also found I have a tendency to spin a bit faster on the road with oval rings so I grind less.

absoluteBLACK chainrings have shift ramps designed into the back of their rings, providing crisp shifting.

The 7075 aluminum rings are cnc’d from a solid plate. The design carves our sections on the outer facing surface of the outer ring to remove weight (147g for the pair) while keeping the rings plenty stiff. They are then anodized to not only add color, but make them more durable. The back side of the ring has been machined to provide larger shift ramps from the small to large ring, giving he chain more real estate to grab onto when moving up.

Unlike their road rings, the 48/32 rings cannot use their cap bolts that finish off the spider of Shimano cranks. Instead, they come with their own unique chainring bolts that mount from the outside of the chain and thread into the small chainring.

At $124.00 and $94.50 for the outer and inner rings respectively the 48/32 rings fall in line with most of their other road rings. They are currently available on absoluteBLACK’s website, and are available in dark gray and black for the outer rings, and black inner rings. If you are looking for larger road rings, or smaller gravel and cross rings in 1x or 2x set up for your 110/5 crankset, check out what they have to offer.

http://www.absoluteblack.cc

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