Bike Stuff

The “Impossible”: 9-speed to 11-speed conversion Goal: Give a 2002 Klein Quantum a lower granny gear and an update. It came with a Shimano 105 5500 9 speed road triple chainring setup with a granny gear of 32 gear inches. In 2002, this is how you got both low gearing and wide range. However, it is still significantly higher than either my gravel or mountain bikes. Of course, being a road bike, it also topped out at 115 inches for speed in the flats. This is much higher than the gravel 1×11 (88in) or even the mountain triple (100). But things have changed in the world of drivetrains in the last 20 years. Let's go for a bit of a journey into the changes in road componentry in the last two decades: The most notable change has been the ability to put wide-range cassettes on the back. Back in 2002, this bike was equipped with a conventional (for the time) 12-25t cassette to go with a less conventional (on a non-touring bike) 52-42-30 triple set of chainrings. Modern non-race road ...