Road 1X - useful or just a fad?

[reohn2]

My "plus" bike came withe the SRAM GX 1x11 groupset. Me and my son both now agree its much better for typical singletrack than a 3x system and I can see why its becoming dominant on MTBs. The bigger cable pull per gear and the smooth clutch mech must be helping of course (common to 2x and 3x setups) but the fact you dont get the sudden big drop/spinning as you run out of gears and drop down a front ring on an unexpected gradient change is great. You can forget about the front mech faff and focus on the trail - just press the "easier" and "harder" buttons as needed. As other posters have stated you really need to try a modern 1x system to appreciate its benefits - at least off-road.

I have 3x10sp on my MTB,the big 40t ring is practically useless to my old legs,the 2(22/30)x10(11-36) works great because I can find closer sets of ratios in the smaller cogs or wider climbing ratios in the larger ones.this also suits my old legs too.
I can understand 1x system suiting MTB applications but it's far from ideal for all MTB applications.
The 2x10 mentioned ranges from 17.5 to 80inches,a 1x11 doesn't offer that range it's either too low at the top end or too high at the bottom.
TBH I can't see the problem with operating two shifters,one on each side,to be a problem in any way.In fact it gives closer ratios in the smaller cogs in the same way a halfstep offers,whereas the 1x11 cannot,especially when climbing undulating tracks due to the wide gaps in ratios.

I still have shimano 3x8 on my two touring bikes of course but I am starting to question this along the lines of the OP so it was great to see this discussion thread and I have enjoyed reading all the comments. Do I really need a 95 inch gear on my tourer?

After a very long time using triples,I've recently built a rough stuff bike with a 2x9sp Alpine double(24/39t and 14-34 custom cassette) again mainly because of old legs/lack of fittness,as a result I've lost the top end ratios,which isn't a problem as I wouldn't use them(biggest ration is 79inch) but I still retain the bottom end(20inch).
A 1x11 with a 30t ring and an 11-42 cassette would give me the same range but not,and this is the important thing,the same progression,the gaps would be too wide in the cruising range.
For me it's all a question of maintaining optimum cadence and efficiency against the wind created at speeds over say 14mph or into a headwind,going from spinning out a gear to mashing the next one isn't efficient,perhaps my old legs are cadence sensitive .

The other point that I think has been missed is "the jobs not done". 1x is evolving with more speeds and new hub standards emerging and "trickling down" to cheaper groupsets. When I grew up a front mech "10 speed" 5x2 gear "racer" was an unaffordable luxury..now look where we are...watch this space

To an extent I agree 11sp cassettes and chains will come down in price much the same as 9 and 10sp have how far down is anyone's guess but I hopw they become as cheap as 9s and 10s for the sake of 1x11 users as I don't think 11sp is going to go away,possibly the opposite,where it'll end ais also anyone's guess.

[squeaker]

...for general use I reckon that a single 38 front matched to say 11/28 rear would be simple, cheap and easy to maintain.

In 8-spd form, this is exactly what I have on my town / shopping / all weather bike (with 559 wheels). Gets me up the local hills if I stand, and is hard work to spin out on the flat without a tailwind - sorted!

[Brucey]

...for general use I reckon that a single 38 front matched to say 11/28 rear would be simple, cheap and easy to maintain.

In 8-spd form, this is exactly what I have on my town / shopping / all weather bike (with 559 wheels). Gets me up the local hills if I stand, and is hard work to spin out on the flat without a tailwind - sorted!

even so you would be better off with a larger chainring and larger sprockets; lasts longer, is more efficient, etc etc.

some MTB racers have stuck with 2x systems (even though they don't need the extra gear range) citing that

a) the chain doesn't fall off and
b) specifically because the 2x system offers a big handful of gears in one hit, using the FD.

cheers

They are in the minority though Brucey....

yes I did say some.....

In the grand scheme of things you have various factors such as

1) fashion
2) availability
3) genuine (or just perceived) advantage

FWIW 1x makes a bit more sense for MTBs than it does road bikes. Even so I'd argue that the first two in the list above are most important in the world of MTBs; remember there is a whole industry intent on coercing you to buy 'the latest thing' -whether it is really any better or not than last's year's- and once the tide turns one way then alternatives become increasingly difficult to even find.

cheers

[thelawnet]

My "plus" bike came withe the SRAM GX 1x11 groupset. Me and my son both now agree its much better for typical singletrack than a 3x system and I can see why its becoming dominant on MTBs. The bigger cable pull per gear and the smooth clutch mech must be helping of course (common to 2x and 3x setups) but the fact you dont get the sudden big drop/spinning as you run out of gears and drop down a front ring on an unexpected gradient change is great. You can forget about the front mech faff and focus on the trail - just press the "easier" and "harder" buttons as needed. As other posters have stated you really need to try a modern 1x system to appreciate its benefits - at least off-road.

I have 3x10sp on my MTB,the big 40t ring is practically useless to my old legs,the 2(22/30)x10(11-36) works great because I can find closer sets of ratios in the smaller cogs or wider climbing ratios in the larger ones.this also suits my old legs too.
I can understand 1x system suiting MTB applications but it's far from ideal for all MTB applications.

A lot of people are just gullible/daft.

I came across a Youtube video here in Indonesia of a guy replacing the Shimano 40/30/22 chainrings on his 3x10 speed (11-36) with a Snail-brand (Chinese) 34t chainring, and his cassette from an 11-36 with a 11-42t plus a goatlink for the r/d.

He did not fit a chain guide despite the manufacturers advising

"Any brand of single speed discs will not promise and guarantee not to drop chain, especially without adding Leading chain device. Therefore, equipped with the chain guide is one of the effective methods to reduce the chain,"

I asked him why he had changed to 1x, and he said:

"I wanted to reduce the weight in the front, by reducing 3 chain rings to 1, and removing the front derailleur. And gear changing is focused only to the rear derailleur, it seems that in single track this is nicer"

Now I run the same bike with the same 3x10 gears, and my experience is that I can use the 40t on asphalt on the flat or downhill, and as soon as I go off-road, I switch to the 30t, except possibly rarely on some sort of downhill fireroad type situation where I might use 40t, and up some sort of horrible hill, the 22t comes into play.

So my normal 1x off-road range is:

30-11 (2.73x) down to 30-36t (0.83x)

with the option for the granny gear 24/36 (0.67) when things look particularly horrendous (though it can be hard to stay upright offroad at that gearing), as well as the option of flicking up to 40/11 (3.64x) or 40/13 (3.08x) if I'm going downhill on a fairly smooth bit of fireroad and want to try and get up a bit more speed.

Whereas his 'new improved' range is

34/11 (3.09x) down to 34/42 (0.80x)

So whereas 3x10 gives 2 top gears, 10 middle gears and 2 bottom gears in effect, he's ended up with 1 top gear and 10 middle gears compressed into 10 middle gears. And of course that squashing takes place in places that aren't necessarily convenient, with 15-17-19-21 becoming 15-18-21 in order to accommodate the 42t granny gear.

So I can only conclude that many people doing this are simply clueless fashion victims, as he has ended up with a bike that will drop its chain, has worse gear spacing, and differs very little in range from, say, simply switching to the middle ring as a matter of course when heading offroad.

[Airsporter1st]

Well, yes. I live in a big city, so most cyclists are like other city dwellers (and many country dwellers nowadays): they spend their days in an office removed from all mechanical contraptions beyond the keyboard and coffee maker. There are no farmers’ kids here who’ve worked around machinery from the age of six.

As we move deeper into the so-called knowledge economy, knowledge of practical things inevitably recedes. This is a common source of shock and dismay to me, as you can tell from my posts. No-one whom I’ve offered my frame pump to has had any idea how to use it. They put it on the wheel valve at whatever position they encounter it and wag the pump handle back and forth at arm’s length until, very soon, that becomes difficult. Thereafter they don’t complete the stroke, and so ends useful pumping. All the while the valve is tugged every way but straight.

It isn’t obvious to them to spin the wheel so the valve is at a suitable height for supporting the pump head wrist (the left) on the crouched knee and then to swing the right shoulder into the action with the right arm bent at the elbow to get some force economically. It’s not obvious to them to drive the handle to the end of its travel lest all the work be wasted. They don’t have the coordination to keep the valve straight and unloaded while pumping forcefully between the hands.

I think this trend to mechanical ignorance is a major driving force behind things like Di2 and hydraulic brakes. They’re not necessarily bad in themselves – although to me they’re distasteful for all kinds of reasons – but they remove the need for mechanical wit. Until they go wrong, when they’re handed over to a professional mechanic anyway.

One-by may be similar, which isn’t to say that everyone who uses it is a mechanical dunce.

I would really have to wonder about the design of a pump which is such a faff to use!

[Cugel]

Well, yes. I live in a big city, so most cyclists are like other city dwellers (and many country dwellers nowadays): they spend their days in an office removed from all mechanical contraptions beyond the keyboard and coffee maker. There are no farmers’ kids here who’ve worked around machinery from the age of six.

As we move deeper into the so-called knowledge economy, knowledge of practical things inevitably recedes. This is a common source of shock and dismay to me, as you can tell from my posts. No-one whom I’ve offered my frame pump to has had any idea how to use it. They put it on the wheel valve at whatever position they encounter it and wag the pump handle back and forth at arm’s length until, very soon, that becomes difficult. Thereafter they don’t complete the stroke, and so ends useful pumping. All the while the valve is tugged every way but straight.

It isn’t obvious to them to spin the wheel so the valve is at a suitable height for supporting the pump head wrist (the left) on the crouched knee and then to swing the right shoulder into the action with the right arm bent at the elbow to get some force economically. It’s not obvious to them to drive the handle to the end of its travel lest all the work be wasted. They don’t have the coordination to keep the valve straight and unloaded while pumping forcefully between the hands.

I think this trend to mechanical ignorance is a major driving force behind things like Di2 and hydraulic brakes. They’re not necessarily bad in themselves – although to me they’re distasteful for all kinds of reasons – but they remove the need for mechanical wit. Until they go wrong, when they’re handed over to a professional mechanic anyway.

One-by may be similar, which isn’t to say that everyone who uses it is a mechanical dunce.

I would really have to wonder about the design of a pump which is such a faff to use!

An issue that's always fascinated me. What is the best sort of tool design for various circumstances.

At the top of the design parameter list are some big, perhaps global, parameters that can apply to all tools of whatever purpose and function. One of them goes like this:

Is a black-box fully automated tool better than a tool requiring the user to understand and control it's functions?

If you're a manufacturer in the business of making money, you might prefer the former. You don't care how it works, only that it churns out your widgets. If it ceases to work you lay off the fix to an expert that you pay to get into the black box. Ideally, such black boxes are never fixed but cheap enough to replace when they go phut.

If you're an everyday human going about using tools, it's a huge advantage to know how they work and to be able to control them in various ways. The advantages are that:

* You can fix them as you understand how they went wrong via understanding how they are suppose to operate when right; and you have the abilty and opportunity to do so.

* You learn the process and functional operations that tool does via making mistakes with it, which hones you control of it and quality of the work you do with it.

* You can do fasr more with a tool you understand and control than you can do with a fully-automated tool, as the automated variety are pre-programmed and thus inherently limited in function.

There are other advantages but these are what drive many craftsmen to choose tools that are hard to control because this teaches them far more about not just how to control the tool well but also it's capabilities, which translates to higher craft skills in making the things that the tool is used to make. I learnt this first in cycling then later (and in miuch more depth) with cabinet making.

As an example, consider the car. A modern one is highly automated in many functions - black boxes abound, requiring computer diagnostics and often containing parts that can only be replaced, not fixed. Older cars could be user-fixed; and one learnt a lot about them and mechanics in general by doing so.

This pertains to modern life as a whole. Many people have only known the black box world and are at it's mercy. If they can't afford or find a replacement when the box goes phut, they're stuck. And even the simplest thing becomes a black box to them because they have no mechanical skill or understanding. Many lads cannot even fix a puncture and take their bike to the LBS to have it done ......

Cugel

[bigjim]

I have quite a few bikes. Old and modern. Some with DT levers or bar end or STI. Triple and compact. I don't like the drop from outer to inner on a compact plus I'm constantly on local rides using it. I prefer a triple. I like the Brake hoods on STIs but I only have one bike with an STI triple and that does need constant adjustment.

I experimented after seeing Mr Armstrong's setup.
I installed double STIs on one of my old steel bikes. removed the gear cable from the left hand STI and used it on a downtube lever. Coupled with Triple chainrings and an 11-34 rear cassette off I went. It worked brilliantly. On a Triple I rarely come out of the middle ring. So I rarely used that DT lever, just the right hand STI. Not especially pretty to look at but for riding pleasure/convenience, IMO, it can't be beaten. I'm considering changing all my bikes to this system, but I'm stuck with newer frames that don't have braze-ons for DT levers and the wrong shape for band-on levers.

On one club outing this year I met a new guy who had a single chainring setup on a brand new expensive carbon bike. He liked it and did not see any problems. But as a new cyclist he had not experienced anything else. Not mechanically minded ,he had no idea really about how it worked or what size his rear cassette was. Unaware that he had hydraulic brakes even. He just rode his bike!

[slowster]

I would really have to wonder about the design of a pump which is such a faff to use!

What you call 'faff' is simply technique. With most mechanical equipment, good or correct technique on the part of the human operator is important for the equipment to work properly and often to avoid causing damage. This is true of bikes and especially true of tools (which is what a pump is after all).

The various points that Samuel D has listed might look like a faff when written down (as would detailed instructions for optimum use of even something as simple as a screwdriver), but they are all things which most of us who use frame fit pumps or a similarly designed mini-pump do automatically without thinking about it, either because we realised that this was how the pump should ideally be used when we first got a frame fit pump or because we saw clubmates or friends using them and copied them because we could see that it was the best way. In either case there was an element of intuitive mechanical sympathy involved.

As Samuel points out, it's a bit of a surprise when you come across cyclists who lack such mechanical sympathy. Some of them just don't know any better because they have never been shown or had the opportunity to learn from others, and they might quickly improve their technique if they spend time with other riders, but some others are irredeemable and you soon make a mental note never to let them ride your bike or lend them any expensive/delicate tools.

I can well imagine that for the latter group, some modern developments in cycling might have much more appeal than to the rest of us, such as electronic shifting, 1x gearing and the practice of taking your bike in to the LBS fairly regularly for the sort of servicing and adjustment which many of us would do ourselves.

There is nothing inherently wrong with reducing the need for skill or mechanical sympathy in riding and maintaining a bike, or using tools, as long as you are happy with the various likely trade offs of increased cost, increased weight, reduced lifespan, and/or lack of repairability.

[mig]

I have quite a few bikes. Old and modern. Some with DT levers or bar end or STI. Triple and compact. I don't like the drop from outer to inner on a compact plus I'm constantly on local rides using it. I prefer a triple. I like the Brake hoods on STIs but I only have one bike with an STI triple and that does need constant adjustment.

I experimented after seeing Mr Armstrong's setup.
I installed double STIs on one of my old steel bikes. removed the gear cable from the left hand STI and used it on a downtube lever. Coupled with Triple chainrings and an 11-34 rear cassette off I went. It worked brilliantly. On a Triple I rarely come out of the middle ring. So I rarely used that DT lever, just the right hand STI. Not especially pretty to look at but for riding pleasure/convenience, IMO, it can't be beaten. I'm considering changing all my bikes to this system, but I'm stuck with newer frames that don't have braze-ons for DT levers and the wrong shape for band-on levers.

On one club outing this year I met a new guy who had a single chainring setup on a brand new expensive carbon bike. He liked it and did not see any problems. But as a new cyclist he had not experienced anything else. Not mechanically minded ,he had no idea really about how it worked or what size his rear cassette was. Unaware that he had hydraulic brakes even. He just rode his bike!

i'm often with you there. i had to look hard for a decent frame in my size to take a DT lever for commuting duties.

as it happens i ride 1X virtually all the time. the thing is it's 1X1. works well and no problem with front mechs.

[squeaker]

...for general use I reckon that a single 38 front matched to say 11/28 rear would be simple, cheap and easy to maintain.

In 8-spd form, this is exactly what I have on my town / shopping / all weather bike (with 559 wheels). Gets me up the local hills if I stand, and is hard work to spin out on the flat without a tailwind - sorted!

even so you would be better off with a larger chainring and larger sprockets; lasts longer, is more efficient, etc etc.

True, but that's all I had in my spares box when I built the bike

[cycle tramp]

In 8-spd form, this is exactly what I have on my town / shopping / all weather bike (with 559 wheels). Gets me up the local hills if I stand, and is hard work to spin out on the flat without a tailwind - sorted!

even so you would be better off with a larger chainring and larger sprockets; lasts longer, is more efficient, etc etc.

True, but that's all I had in my spares box when I built the bike

Cool! Please post a couple of photographs!! My bit box bike (1 × 5) now uses a 34 single tooth chain ring and a 5 speed IRD freewheel. I use 3 chains, which are cleaned in rotation. If i can get the set up to work for ten thousand miles, the transmission running costs would be 9 pence per ten miles....
Having found a stainless steel 36 chain ring in the shed, the replacement transmission will use a 5 speed SA freewheel which should reduce the transmission running costs even further....

[zenitb]

So a 1x11-42 system is not expensive at all, I suspect because of competition.

If you want into the 10t game, then you have to pay for Sram/Shimano's patents.

Obviously this is a monstrous waste of cash, but I suppose the theory is that with 1x, that extra 10 vs 11t becomes quite important, as it's an extra 20% range.

Fair point thelawnet...there is an "XD tax" at present both for cassettes and hubs but that is typical of new technology..early adopters pay more.

Following on the theme of "its not done yet" it looks like Shimano's new 23 spline freehub design is specifically to support future, cheaper, stamped cassettes with light aluminium carrying spiders (like current 105 Hyperglide ones). Shimano are masters of cost engineering and this could result in cheaper, lighter 10-51 tooth 12-speed cassettes. Regarding sprocket wear these cassettes have 2 to 3 times as many teeth of an eight speed cassette..so all things being equal you would expect 2-3 times the life..further mitigating the cost issue.

Intetesting article in similar vein...
https://road.cc/content/tech-news/24402 ... e-near-you

[Brucey]

Intetesting article in similar vein...
https://road.cc/content/tech-news/24402 ... e-near-you

hmm.. writer may have been 'hard of thought'

..11-32 or 11-34 road cassettes......It’s funny that people point to the gaps on a wide range 1x cassette without acknowledging there are also jumps on these new generation road cassettes. Adding an extra sprocket could provide greater flexibility for smoothing some of those gaps between certain gears, especially at the top-end....

the new generation road cassettes he mentioned have a much smaller range than the 1x cassettes you might find on a MTB, which are (say) 10-51 (for 12s XTR) . So a 12s 10-51 cassette requires about +16% per shift (which won't be a smooth progression, it never is) and a (worst case with current road equipment) 11s 11-34 requires less than 12% per shift. Not even close.

Also note that all current 2x road chainsets give overlapping gear ranges between chainrings with such cassettes, thus making the average gear interval even smaller.

cheers

[Sweep]

I but the SRAM 42 tooth cassettes (or example) are ridiculously expensive http://www.wiggle.co.uk/sram-xx1-11-speed-cassette/. Why would anyone bother to fit one, except on their bestest, bestest Sunday bike only to ridden in the most perfect of weathers? That kind of defeats the purpose of the single front chain-ring, robustness & simplicity.

One claimed feature:
"for a superior connection to the wheel."

[Brucey]

in fairness you can have fairly low running costs with a 1x11 system if you go about it in the right way; for example a (heavy) 11s HG 11-42T cassette such as SRAM PG-1130 is 'only' ~£50 if you shop around and SRAM PC-1110 chains are £10 a go; hardly worth cleaning them....? Just change the chain at 0.5% and the cassette should go a few chains before clapping out on you.

The running costs are still way more than the running costs of a 6/7/8s system though.

cheers