1x Road Musings

[bikerboy337]

So I’m biking up another road bike and going 1x on this one. My current road bike is a 48/35 10-33 SRAM setup. Really love it for my riding in southeastern Massachusetts… I rarely leave the 48t chainring and only really do when I just want to spin easy up a hill… otherwise I feel like I have plenty of gearing for 99% of my riding in the 48t front chainring….

For my 1x I am planning to go with the 48t single ring and originallly figured I’d toss on a 10-44 cassette…. But the more I’ve looking at my riding, my use of gearing (mainly 48t on my 48/35 setup) and lack of really ever going 35/28 or 35/33 on my current bike, I’m starting to think that the 48t crank with a 10-36 cassette is the way to go. It will maintain almost all the gearing I want on road (missing the 14t cog) and still give me gearing for any hills I may encounter.

The point of this build is just to build up a fun bike. No racing, not going for speed records, just hop on, go and have fun mimic of my road bike….

Anyways…. Would love people’s thoughts? The more I think about it, losing the 12 and 14 that the XPLR cassette loses leaves a bigger gap in the gearing I’m riding 90% of the time…my rides are 17-19mph, 90rpm ish and the 11-13-15 gap in XPLR isn’t as ideal for me as the 12-13-15 that the 10-36 has… I’ll Miss a true bailout gear but if I’m riding long or steep road outside of SE MASS, I’ll either be taking my gravel bike with 44/10-44 or my Road bike with 48/35 10-33…. Also have the option to toss a 40t chainring on my gravel 1x for really long/steep riding….

Anyways… keep going back and forth and think I’m settling on a 36t cassette with 48t chainring for rolling hills and flat of my local roads…

[prototoast]

I've been very happy with 1x for road riding. I have one bike with 11 speed, 44t front, 10-42 rear. Another with 48t front, 10-52 rear.

I generally only pay attention to the max range of the setup, not the individual cogs, so the fact that you have even researched which particular cogs you have means we might be different, but I don't see any reason not to give it a try.

[gospastic]

10-36 sounds good in your case. I have XPLR 42 x 10-44 on my gravel bike and occasionally take it on road rides, and wouldn't consider it ideal. It is hilly here, and appreciate the low gears when climbing, but on flats it's hard to find a good cadence.

[Turkle]

Originally Posted by gospastic

It is hilly here, and appreciate the low gears when climbing, but on flats it's hard to find a good cadence.

It really does put in perspective how great modern drivetrains are. I used to ride 5-speed freewheels in the back, and it never occurred to me to complain. Now if I can't find the *exact* right cadence across my 24 gear combinations it drives me nuts.

Richmond is mostly so flat that I could probably get away with a 1x for casual riding, but for anything fast/sporty 1x really does drive me nuts. I need the nice tight jumps between gears in the back!

[Dave]

I have a 46 ring and used both 10-44 and 10-36 cassette. The 10-36 has the 12 tooth, that's only good for speeds around 30mph. I use my 46/13 in the 24-28 mph range, but that's not a speed that most people use a lot. I only use it on a descent or when I turn up the power on my Cervelo Rouvida to stay in the 25-28 mph range on a flat.

[ltwtsculler91]

I have a good friend who's done just this for over a year now, but 48t and 10-33, and loves it. Definitely works well for that 18-19mph range in the rolling or short/shallow hills we have in NJ and Rockland county. I'll find myself in my 50t most of the time on the rides too with AXS (I've got 50/37, 10-33, since the Westchester/CT side is steeper).

I think you're going down the right path with 1x and a 10-36, but would actually think to go the other way and try a 46t with the 10-33 to keep a bit more progression through the middle of the cassette. I have a 46/33 on my gravel bike and have really liked the 46t for those "mid speed" 17-19mph rides.

[saab2000]

I like my 1x for gravel riding and the short, punchy climbs I encounter. But for road riding I’m still good with 2x. That said, I have sort of wondered about 1x13. That’s awfully close to the same number of unique ratios on many 2x setups. A 2x has a lot of duplicate or near-duplicate gears, as well as the verboten big-big and small-small.

Ekar or the new SRAM 1x13 could be an interesting setup with the right cassette and chainring.

[ltwtsculler91]

Originally Posted by saab2000

I like my 1x for gravel riding and the short, punchy climbs I encounter. But for road riding I’m still good with 2x. That said, I have sort of wondered about 1x13. That’s awfully close to the same number of unique ratios on many 2x setups. A 2x has a lot of duplicate or near-duplicate gears, as well as the verboten big-big and small-small.

Ekar or the new SRAM 1x13 could be an interesting setup with the right cassette and chainring.

Agreed, I've been eyeing the new SRAM 1x13 with a 46t front ring as a really nice daily driver or long ride solution. It seems to make a lot of sense for a mostly road allroad type bike. I'd consider upgrading my Mosaic but I've got a welded on FD tab and wouldn't really gain much from spending the $$.. Will likely try it at some point though

[Baron Blubba]

My Ritchey and my Melee are both 48 x 10 Sram Force AXS 1x at the moment. It's not perfect but I still prefer it to 2x. The only thing I'm missing is a 12t cog, and that's only on very fast* group rides where maintaining the absolutely most efficient cadence when I'm pulling is important. That 48 x 12t is the sweet spot on flat roads at speeds in the mid-20's and up.
On solo rides, I barely ever notice it and don't really care.
If the Ritchey was UDH compatible, I'd already have a Red AXS 13 speed derailleur and cassette on it, though, just for the 12 tooth.

I'm light and a pretty strong climber. A hill I climb often has an extended section, about a mile, at 10-14%, and the 48x44 is plenty.
I wouldn't be thrilled about muscling that gearing over an extended section of, say, 15-18%, but it's doable without too much drama.

On another bike I have Ekar with a 40 x 9 - 36 drivetrain and the gearing is even better on that bike, always have exactly the cog that I want.
On my Mog I have Ekar with a 38 x 9 - 42 (or is it 44? No, I think it's 42) and that also pretty much always has just the gear I need, even for road --although I spin out way too early on fast long descents.
People will say that the 9 tooth feels like crap, and yeah, maybe it's not the most efficient thing in the world, but when you're going down down down a super fast descent, I don't really care about efficiency so much as having something to push when I need it, and it does that job well.

[p nut]

My main road bike is currently set up 46 x 10/44. Works great here in the Rockies. I used to ride around here on a fixed gear 47x17, so 46x33 would technically work, too. But I like the bailout gear for some of the climbs around here.

Overall experience with 1x has been great.

[vespasianus]

Originally Posted by saab2000

I like my 1x for gravel riding and the short, punchy climbs I encounter. But for road riding I’m still good with 2x. That said, I have sort of wondered about 1x13. That’s awfully close to the same number of unique ratios on many 2x setups. A 2x has a lot of duplicate or near-duplicate gears, as well as the verboten big-big and small-small.

Ekar or the new SRAM 1x13 could be an interesting setup with the right cassette and chainring.

I use EKAR with a 10-44 cassette and a 44 front ring. Works great.

[benb]

It makes sense to me and would work pretty well for me around say Cape Cod type terrain, especially for more relaxed type riding.

I have been thinking about doing this to my All City Space Horse, it's got a 50/34 + 12-34 or something like that on it right now, but it's been configured with a flat bar for commuting and around town. The gearing seems kind of dumb for that. The 34 seeming comically low but the 50 has an awful lot of top end for a bike like that. (Though the bike still takes off like a road bike when you stomp on it.)

I have 10-speed microshift on there right now with 105 derailleurs. The microshift rear isn't great. I needed flat bar shifters and I have MTB brake levers on it now so I can run MTB brakes. That part is a huge improvement over the drop bar setup on that bike, but the shifting is trash compared to the 105 levers, and I don't have much faith the microshift is going to last if it gets ridden in any bad weather.

For what I'm doing something like a 1x with a 46-48 front and something like a 12-30 or so might be nice? Maybe I want lower gears in the back but I definitely don't need 1:1.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by benb

It makes sense to me and would work pretty well for me around say Cape Cod type terrain, especially for more relaxed type riding.

I have been thinking about doing this to my All City Space Horse, it's got a 50/34 + 12-34 or something like that on it right now, but it's been configured with a flat bar for commuting and around town. The gearing seems kind of dumb for that. The 34 seeming comically low but the 50 has an awful lot of top end for a bike like that. (Though the bike still takes off like a road bike when you stomp on it.)

I have 10-speed microshift on there right now with 105 derailleurs. The microshift rear isn't great. I needed flat bar shifters and I have MTB brake levers on it now so I can run MTB brakes. That part is a huge improvement over the drop bar setup on that bike, but the shifting is trash compared to the 105 levers, and I don't have much faith the microshift is going to last if it gets ridden in any bad weather.

For what I'm doing something like a 1x with a 46-48 front and something like a 12-30 or so might be nice? Maybe I want lower gears in the back but I definitely don't need 1:1.

My daily rider road bikes have a 50/39. I used a standard 50/34 but replaced the inner ring. It’s just about perfect for a flat place with some light rolling risers.

[benb]

Originally Posted by saab2000

My daily rider road bikes have a 50/39. I used a standard 50/34 but replaced the inner ring. It’s just about perfect for a flat place with some light rolling risers.

That might be an easy/simple improvement I guess along with a tighter cassette. The front shifting on that setup must be fantastic.

It just feels like for around town the front derailleur is just fairly superflous.

I think some of us are getting influenced this way from riding other types of 1x bikes.

My 1x MTB is completely fine around town. The 1x never becomes weird till you start pushing 20mph. On either a MTB or an around town bike doing 20+ seems somewhat out of place.

[Baron Blubba]

Originally Posted by saab2000

My daily rider road bikes have a 50/39. I used a standard 50/34 but replaced the inner ring. It’s just about perfect for a flat place with some light rolling risers.

That's a really good idea. I like the old 52/42 chainring set ups. The gap between big and little is small enough that shifting betwixt them doesn't create a spin-out or bog down effect, it's very fluid. I bet 50/39 is similar.