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Curious...thanks.
Very little difference, feels good in a very subtly different way to normal. Think they benefit spinners better than grinders.
Like them but wouldn't pay significantly more than a normal ring.
Real world: Minimal difference
Another dimension: http://www.noncircularchainring.be/
Ogival FTW!! (For The Weird)
Seems to help with MY knee pain, not had since moved over to oval
I've used one for years and I think they're a little bit better, in that for me, it means I'm less likely to spin out on techy climbs and I'm less likely to stall in them 'oh shoot I'm in the wrong gear' moments. As for being able to pull a bigger chainring / higher gear / be faster up climbs / more attractive to the opposite sex claims made by the marketing peoples, they're mostly bullshit.
So in summary, they're a little bit better for the same price.
Oval ring every time on a mtb . Better on the knees especially climbing .real life experience
Not had one long, but it did feel like it smoothed out the dead spot, just made it a touch easier to maintain a steady spin. Not as pronounced feeling as I thought, but good in a subtle way.
I have oval on my hardtail simply because at the time it was the cheapest chainring available. I have a normal chainring on my full suss and apart from an initial feeling of imbalance I can’t tell the difference at all. Having said that the other week I put it on with the notch out of line and it was bloomin hard work up the hills enough that I knew I’d put it on wrong and it went back to normal so it must work to a certain degree in terms of making it slightly easier than it would be with the same teeth as the bigger portion of it.
I find it’s genuinely easier to get a smooth pedal stroke. Going back to a bike with a round ring feels “choppy” by comparison.
Feel like I can spin a gear harder with an oval ring when climbing and it seems to help with traction too. Don’t notice much difference elsewhere but definitely seems to be benefit climbing
I like mine - on four different bikes. Oval ring feels smoother to me in low gears, probably because I don't have a particularly smooth pedal stroke. It has also made me appreciably more attractive to women and faster up climbs.
Really loved mine on the FS. Felt like a lot less pedal bob.
I have them on my fat bike and HT. I'll fit one to the FS when the current round chainring wears out.
I feel there's a definite improvement when climbing but couldn't quantify it, maybe a couple of percent at most and probably easily swamped by other variables. I get a much smoother power output, most noticeable on road climbs where you don't get that rhythmic "thrum, thrum, thrum", the sound from the tyres is much more even.
The difference is most pronounced on the fat bike - the other weekend when there was 15cm of snowfall overnight in the Dales I was able to just keep pedalling through it without that surge of power I'd get from a round chainring on each pedal stroke. Going uphill would still defeat me in the end though as would drifts but that was as much about pure strength (or lack of it).
Can tell no difference going from round to oval. But can feel a difference when going the other way.
I've tried rotor and absolute black. Went back to round both times. Felt worse in steep, loose climbs, didn't offer any benefits to me over round.
My knees like'em.
I like them. Helped me get over a climb I normal struggle with (but maybe it was just luck).
I certainly choose oval when speccing a bike. Really like the Garbaruk melon ring. Has deeper teeth.
Emporers new clothes for me. Tried works and superstar on mtb and gravel bike and cant tell.
I put one on the fatbike and it was really noticable... Not so much as free power, or whatever, but sitting and spinning especially on long climbs it was obvious that there was less bouncing going on. And though I can't feel the result, if I'm exerting the same amount of energy and not wasting any of it bouncing up and down, then it's pretty much got to be going forwards.
That said, I've gone back to round ones on the normal bikes, mostly because of chain devices.
Considerably easier to pedal smoothly. Just get one, the difference isn't enormous but is worth having.
As per my previous post, I suspect it's more noticeable if you don't have a super smooth pedalling action to start with.
I notice next to no difference in how they pedal but oval definitely help with my knee pain so I'm a convert.
To me initially oval felt more like my legs could work like pistons, I didn't need to bother so much to pedal smoothly. Which may be related to why some people have noted it helps with knee pain? Definitely helps with getting the pedal over the top on steep climbs where you would like a lower gear only you are already in first. Which happens to me quite a lot (I am 62).
Those Garbaruk rings look good, I just don't have the guts to run a 38t on my CX bike, will stick with a 36t Superstar Raptor, no-one else does a 36t for Shimano 110BCD cranks
Personally I found the absolute black one I used hurt my right knee and I found using it resulted in an uneven power delivery on steep technical climbs. They don’t work for me but do for others.
In terms of changes to a bike it is relatively cheap to try and you’ll get a good proportion of your money back if you do find it doesn’t work for you.
Totally subjective IMO.
Feels so much better than a round ring on my full suss, especially on spinny, techy climbs. On the HT I'm hard pushed to tell the difference TBH.
Carbis
In terms of changes to a bike it is relatively cheap to try and you’ll get a good proportion of your money back if you do find it doesn’t work for you.
Sums it up I would say.👍
I have tried to condition myself over (too) many years of riding (and mostly on the road) to spin circles. In this context it really helps to increase power output. Riding off road however is more of a staccato kind of riding style with short bursts and constant adjustment in technical sections to clear obstacles and get the power down at awkward points in the pedal stroke.
Having run 1 x oval on the road and definitely noticed a positive difference I tried it off road and really noticed a negative difference. Better when spinning circles (just riding along), but less predictable in the technical stuff. For some reason it really highlights any slowness in the pick up of your freewheel. I have never really been bothered between a few degrees of pick up here and there but with an oval ring you can more easily spin out and loose engagement at certain points of the pedal stroke. I am however running it off on a hardtail. To build on the comment above, maybe it works better on a full suspension bike where the rider is more isolated from every slight bump in the trail.
On balance it works for me on the road, but I prefer round off road.
I use them and rate them. I find it helps my knees and I definitely notice a difference swapping between bikes with and without oval. Climbing I think I get more traction but it’s hard to test that definitely. I use the AbsoluteBlack ones.
I have one on my fatty, certainly seems to have helped the pain in my knee.