Just built my first 1×10 (a lurcher). Took it for a 45km blast last night around my local routes. To be honest I missed the big and granny rings. I just about had a hernia getting up one hill but that’s just a case of manning up as I used to SS it but the worst thing is spinning out. It’s going to be my SS soon though so I guess I’ll have to get used to both. As for the fitness thing, just keep doing it!

Any advice from people who have gone from 2×10 to 1×10, whether it be training related or technique etc. I’ve found that I have had to get out of the seat a bit more on longer climbs to work different muscles.

Best advice I’ve heard was from Ned Overend, when someone asked him how to climb quicker he replied “push harder on the pedals”

Works for me

Interesting topic…I converted recently to a 1×10 with 32 ring and 11-36 cassette.

Fitness will improve in time you just have to be patient with it though it can be frustrating when your mates are leaving you behind spinning along easily while you’re forced to push a much harder gear. I’ve had my doubts about the setup but the lack of maintenance and chain slap and the simplicity of the single ring have won me over for the time being.

+1 for standing on steep stuff, put the power down!

When i first got rid of my front mech I started with 1×9 11-34 32t I found this hard work on some of the longer climbs in the peaks. Now I run 1×10 11-36 30t and everything is fine. I think the biggest thing is to keep going what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.

Fashion? Can’t be really I was 1×9 back in 08 with 36×12-32 I think ran that all over the place and pushed quite a bit in the lakes (it was a very heavy AM bike though)
I went to 2x to make things nicer with 22/36 and yes I was using 36-11 a fair bit to pedal, my legs don’t spin fast comfortably and I like having the ability to push on hard when needed with 36.

I’m now at 24/39 and I reckon the 39 is too much for all bar road and fire road blasting. Personally I will skip 1×10 in the short term and move to 1×11 next. Been doing the calcs for the missus and it seems to fit well for what I reckon.

After that for the OP invest in good chains, pedal harder and cary magic links and a chain breaker.

With no real advice to offer all I can say is that whatever you go with it’s not final.
Like mike up there I’ve tinkered with all sorts over the years, adapting gearing to suit whatever I was doing mostly at the time.
2×8, 2×9, singlespeed, 3×9 with 11-25 road cassette…all sorts.
Ended up right back with a tripple, which I use…fully.

I’m not mega fit and my 1×10 set up is 34t and 11:36 at the back. I live in Calderdale and find that most of the hills around here are OK but rarely do I sit in one position – I tend to move around the bike, stand and sit to give each muscle group their ‘turn’. Other people have said it but hills tend to be a state of mind – It’s a challenge to grunt it out on occasion. I find that a 34t ring also gives me the best options on the downs and off-road too.

I went for 1×10 in part because I found I was not often using the full range of my 2×10, particularly bottom end, so knew I could generally cope. I worked out from the gear ratios 1×10 would lose me 2 gears top and bottom compared to what I had, and that was going to be fine for me. Major benefit of course, losing the front mech. Only real issue is with stuff like a technical climb with a short steep pile of roots or rocks to get over sometimes just needs more momentum. Well that and climbing in the Lakes was a bit of a struggle 😉

Generally fine though. Keeping up with some of the racy night riders I ride with sometimes is more tricky, though I’m fine on the technical climbs, but anything flat or straight and they’re off. But then half of them are on 29ers and there’s a lot of rigid single speed fetish going on there too! 😉 . They’re also generally a hell of a lot fitter than I am.

People overthink this issue.

A 32-36 is a tiny gear and sitting down pushing through stuff in that gear won’t be quicker than walking. 22-32 is just silly and if you really feel you need that gear then watch your mates walking away ahead of you and think again.

I’ve not felt the need for any more gears since using 1×10, and simply think it’s crazy to go looking for 42T cogs and the like. 11 speed, pah!

Deadkenny – would you have kept up with those boys if you were on 2×9 gearing?

A 32-36 is a tiny gear and sitting down pushing through stuff in that gear won’t be quicker than walking.

Disagree, it’s quicker… but not by a massive amount I admit. I noticed when walking 2 hills recently in an event the 2 blokes in front were riding up in a silly gear, they pulled about 50m out of my by the end of the hill. Which was about 30-40sec.

I don’t like walking with my bike. I’d prefer to still be sitting and spinning even if it was slower (which IME it isn’t unless you’re incapable of spinning).

Yeah whether or not it’s faster, I CBA to walk! Unless it’s a race, when fastest wins!

for those who’ve gone to 2x or 1x don’t you miss the big ring?

nope don’t own a big ring, do have a 36 on my “fast” bike that I appreciate on a few trails, not many tho. But more attached to my granny ring tho.

22-32 is just silly and if you really feel you need that gear then watch your mates walking away ahead of you and think again.

most of us ain’t racing tho so speed is not an issue*, staying on the bike is, whether that’s cleaning a lung busting climb or having a breather spinning a silly low gear before the next gradient kick, low gears can be very useful. For lakeland riding (bigger and steeper stuff than I usually ride) I keep thinking I could do with something even lower TBH

*plus on a lot of climbs where i “need” 22×32 those who stay on the bike are dropping the walking contingent of the group, ramblers/runners may be quicker but not those pushing bikes

Thing is this “it’s quicker to walk” thing is irrelevant.

I’m on a cycle ride, not a walk!

If i wanted to walk my favourite loop, then i’d leave the bike behind and save 12kg!.

The challenge is to ride EVERYTHING! that’s kinda the point of mountain biking isn’t it??

Agreed.

I’m with you there maxtorque.

I’m with maxtorque, abhor walking. Only had to walk a few times since going 1×10 and it’s always been from losing traction on steep wet sloppy stuff with summer tyres on. Reckon a bit of practice getting smoother at low cadence and high power would help. However it’s rare that I encounter this sort of terrain, and if I did then I’d happily pop a granny on there so that I could spin up smoothly.

I kind of think that 32:36 is a doable enough ratio that anyone who’s reasonably fit should be able to turn it over uphill and anyone who isn’t shouldn’t find it so far beyond the realms of feasibility that it’s not attainable with a bit of practice. How has this thread run to 57 posts?

Realistically if you’re too weak to manage that ratio then saving the odd few hundred grammes on a lost chainring, mech, shifter and cable should probably be quite low on your list of riding priorities.

I kind of think that 32:36 is a doable enough ratio that anyone who’s reasonably fit should be able to turn it over uphill and anyone who isn’t shouldn’t find it so far beyond the realms of feasibility that it’s not attainable with a bit of practice. How has this thread run to 57 posts?

getting that uphill in the first 5 miles… easy…. getting it uphill on the 5th massive climb of a 70km ride…. not so easy…

Getting it up Butsers Hill at the end of a night time SDW end to end…. REALLY hard…. really really.

Maybe it is a fitness issue then! I also don’t mind walking as I don’t like to put pressure on a day’s biking by saying I MUST be on the bike for everything. Scotland has a lot of big long climbs and I manage them all pretty well.

There’s a very good reason for single ring gearing and I find the benefits enjoyable and don’t find any downsides at all. Next step to fully purify the experience is to get a nw ring and lose the chainguide, but I’ll wait until the current front ring wears out for that.

Maybe a question should be who has given 1×10 a good try and gone back to 2x because they couldn’t cope?

A 32-36 is a tiny gear and sitting down pushing through stuff in that gear won’t be quicker than walking. 22-32 is just silly and if you really feel you need that gear then watch your mates walking away ahead of you and think again.

Where do you ride to come to that conclusion? Assuming you are not just winding us up! Are you doing 6 hour Scottish mountain epics with thousands and thousands of feet of technical ascent?

In my experience when you keep grinding up a massive climb, the people that are off and pushing are not pushing faster than the riders. On top of that, as stated here the whole point is to ride everything and for a lot of people having a granny ring or 42 tooth cassette enables them to achieve that.

I’ve not felt the need for any more gears since using 1×10, and simply think it’s crazy to go looking for 42T cogs and the like

So why do the 2 best and fittest all round MTBers of our time Jared Graves and Jerome Clementz run 42 tooth rear cogs then? Have you seen these guys climb? They are on a different planet, are you telling us you are fitter than them?

You say above you are doing proper Scottish mountain rides? Well if you can clean the climbs up here on 1X10 without a 42t cog you are insanely fit, especially when that last 3000′ climb comes 6 hours into the day. Even if you can, why come on here and try to make people that can’t feel inferior to you?

I can think of plenty of climbs where I’ve been glad of gear below 32:36. I don’t think it is purely about fittness its also about where you ride and how you like to pedal.

I know that my power drops off once I can’t spin at about 70 rpm. With a 32:36 I would be doing about 50 rpm on a sustained 25% slope so I would definitely be quicker with a lower gear.

Well this weekend I managed a couple of laps of at Cannock Chase without any issue. Next test is Llandegla.

Well this weekend I managed a couple of laps of at Cannock Chase without any issue.

Are there any hills at Cannock?

erm……..a couple..

yeah but there not that big 😉 I remember doing a mates 1 bike rules them all type race there and 1 lad got round on a Santa Cruz v10 (he wasn’t last either)

glasgowdan – Member
Deadkenny – would you have kept up with those boys if you were on 2×9 gearing?

No chance! Even sticking a motor on the thing would be tricky keeping up with them 😀

I’ve been running 1×10 since the 11-36 cassette came out. I like the relative simplicity – and even more so now a clutch mech and narrow wide chainring remove the need for chain devices/bash rings. Part of the attraction is that there is less stuff to clag up.

I tend to ride a 30t ring in the winter slop and move to 34t when thing dry out a bit. You can climb fairly fast with a 30t ring – just work on leg speed which will actually give you a better aerobic workout.

I also run 1×10 on my winter road bike with 44×13-29. Gives you a spinning and strength workout depending on terrain, which is lumpy here in N Wales.

glasgowdan – Member

People overthink this issue.

A 32-36 is a tiny gear and sitting down pushing through stuff in that gear won’t be quicker than walking. 22-32 is just silly and if you really feel you need that gear then watch your mates walking away ahead of you and think again.

I’ve not felt the need for any more gears since using 1×10, and simply think it’s crazy to go looking for 42T cogs and the like. 11 speed, pah!

I shall tell Tracy Moseley she’s crazy, next time she overtakes me.

I started on an AM 26er 2×10. I switchrd to a 1×10 33T 11-36 29er Stumpjumper. I learned how to stand more on the climbs. I quickly went from being last to being mid to front-pack.

I built another Stumpjumper (Carbon) to race with and had a choice between 32T and 34T (wide-narrow minus guide). Being that I am able to climb everything on 33T, I went with a 32T instead because I figured it’s less irritating to run out of gears at the top and have to cruise than it is to run out of gears at the bottom. It’ll also give me a slightly faster advantage on a climb since I’m already versed on a 33T.

Pros:
-Less to worry about a front derailleur – no dropped chains
-Attack your climbs
-Less Weight
-No chain slap

Cons:
-Don’t get stuck behind someone in Granny
-Lose some top and low end
-Make sure you have a clutch or type 2 derailleur

For me (1*9, 32-11/32) it was a response to winter filth, the fact I rarely get time for an epic ride these days and I live in one of the more rolling hilled bits of the south. If I lived and did big rides in the lakes, Scotland etc then I would probably still have some kind of double (guessing something like 36/24).

For what I ride it is the best compromise for most of the time. _

Isn’t there too many factors; weight, fitness, terrain and steepness to come to a definite conclusion here? It’s not one size fits all.

My set ups: turner czar 36×42/10 xx1, ragley td1 36 (raceface) x 36/11 and recently as a silly purchase spearfish set up xx1 32 and SRAM 36/11.

Bit over the top, but I think the spearfish 32×36/11 is the best compromise for budget and flexibility. The 36 on the czar was my first foray and a 34 may be better but I’ve done spending.

One things for sure I can’t see me ever going triple or perhaps even double again. I just hate the extra cabling and less than perfect jump in gear ratios between big and small.

But you could say I’ve traded the flexibility of a triple and a do it all bike for three expensive bikes instead. Hey ho.

Always had issues with my front mech on Zesty, think it was set up wrong from the start but when I changed to 1×10 I felt a massive improvement as dropped the shifter and chain guide/ tensioner. I went 32 tooth 11-36 however have just upgraded to 34 tooth as felt I was spinning out on the downs. Never had trouble climbing on the 32 tooth and did some very steep long technical climbs. I am sure its gonna be a struggle from the start with 34 tooth but I am hoping it will make me stronger and as a consequence faster if anything on the downs.