Sram engineering + reliability strike again

[benb]

What's the wear on a 9? More wear = more maintenance = more chances for the mechanic to make a mistake when they've got 20 guys riding 20k km/yr or something in all conditions.

That's just the ridiculousness of it though, even the 50/34 compact is stupid low 99% of the time if you're 140-160lbs and you have a 400w FTP.

The 50 is stupid for me 99% of the time on my fast road bike (hence why I've never run one for an extended period.) I would only like it on days where I happened to climb one of the handful of multi-mile climbs in the northeastern US that average > 10% for miles on end. (Most of those are toll roads that you can only ride during hill climbs.)

You only see them use the 34/50 for the most epic of mountain climbs on the longest days in the longest tours, and even then it's only the guys who like to spin like crazy.

1X is stupid for these guys even if it has plenty of low and high range if it requires more swapping out of parts for different days. My guess is they will swap out more often than a recreational rider since they won't need the range on the flatter days and riding with the wide range cassette will be really annoying on those days since they'll not use 3-4 of the cogs and then still be stuck with huge jumps between the cogs.