I had 1×9 for years. Couldnt think of any reasons to justify 2 or 3 cogs at the front.

i HATE front mechs, sooner or later, they bung up with cack, won’t shift, rattle about, just another cable to worry about.

Run the 456SS with single ring, its great. 36t just mean I have no choice but to mash up stuff, so now I’m the fastest climber amongst my riding buddies. Seriously considering just single ring on the Meta AM when I buy drive chain for it next month.

Don’t do it… You NEED that 44T big ring according to the other thread running on here right now! 😕

In all seriousness… Give it a go… You’ll probably find it better than you expected.

I’d recommend a 32T ring to start with though, unless you live somewhere especially flat. If your legs get stronger, by all means go up to a 34 or 36 but even with a 32 you lose remarkably little off the top a full 3 ring setup, and only the bottom two gears too.

As for reasons? You’ll not realise just how much a pain in the ass a front mech and associated gubbins is until you go single ring with a good chain device! Weight wise, you’ll still lose a few grammes too, as you’re removing more than you’re putting back on unless your chain device is especially beastly.

Aye, there’s a 12-36 9-speed deore cassette and you can swap the littlest ring over but that’s not ideal

my only concern with going 1×9/10 is road work.

if your riding offroad all the time, willing to put up with a low road gear then fine. My concern is that to get a low gear for off road climbing and a high gear for road work a single ring isn’t quite capable,YET. things like the sram 1×11 might be enough though.

It does mean less weight, less to go wrong, one less mud trap, etc.

As always pays your money takes your chances.

I am well happy with 32t and a 10 spd 11-36t cassette.

The E13 xc guide does the job fine enough for what I do on it. (along with making a nice fixing point for the rear gear outer) £40 over the likes of £110 if it does the job 98% of the time is good enough for me.

There’s no bash ring,just a chain protecting the ring. No shifter,mech and cables. Just a nice space on the left hand side of the bar for a dropper post lever when I get one.

1st gear is fine for Torridon (even with the extra weight of a rack,sleeping bag,mat,bivi and a fairly packed non biking rucksack)

The cassette wearing more evenly throughout all the sprockets is something I like the idea of too. The last few cassettes I removed from triple set-ups were in great condition on some sprockets,wasted on others.

O.K. a 32t ring and an 11t at the rear might see racers possibly lose some races due to spinning out but I don’t race so the benefits of 1×10 for everything, bar flying down a fast track where you need to be pushing a gear to do well in a race,is the way I will probably go in the future.

I have just gone 1×10 and am not having any difficulties so far.

I still have my long cage mech on so am gonna buy one of these very soon
zee

i’d only go 1x on a lightwight hardtail where i’m happy to stand and mash. (i have 1×9 on a ht, 2×10 on FS). 9 v 10 is really irrelevant, main problem is I can’t have only a 36 or 38T chainring (what i want for flat and descending) and still sit & spin up the steep stuff on long rides. front mechs are a pain to set up but once you’ve done it they last forever and they mostly do as a top chain device.. i actually use an old front mech still on my 1×9 :p