Chainring question

[Thomas777]

My wife's bike, which has a Rohloff, is in need of a new chainring. I have a 36t  9 speed chainring on my shelf the right bcd. Is there any disadvantage to using it vs. a single speed chainring?
Thanks!

[mickeg]

I see nothing wrong with a 9 speed versus a single speed.  Are you also changing chains? 

I am running 8 speed chains and chainrings.

[John Saxby]

Hi Tom,  I use a 36T Surly stainless ring on my Raven, as you may remember.  Have had fairly good experience with those, though in last summer (2018) I ran into some difficulty getting KMC chains to mate properly with my old 36T Surly.  While we were waiting for a new 36T Surly, I did some experimenting with other chains & rings.

What I learned may be useful for you:

1)  A 36T Sugino alloy ring (5-hole, 110 BCD) works well.  I think that that item was for a single-spd bike, though I see no reason why a 36T (middle) ring from a 9-spd triple wouldn't work well, as George suggests.

2)  I found that the SRAM 917 9-spd chain (middle of the SRAM price range) worked best, with both the Sugino and later the Surly stainless 36T ring.  The 917 is 11/128ths width, fractionally narrower than the 3/32" KMC counterpart, and worked very smoothly.

Cheers,  John

Cheers,  John

[Thomas777]

Thanks John! I have a Surly chainring on order! We are heading back to Europe for a 3 month tour starting mid-May.