My 3 x 10 bike has been stolen, and the equivalent replacement now comes with 2 x 10 setup. I have never read any of the 2 x 10 etc threads as I never thought it was relevant to me.

I’m not unfit, but certainly not the fittest, and quite often have found myself using the lowest granny gear, yes I know walking may be quicker but thats not the point for me, and after a 30 mile ride, around where I live I am glad of a granny gear being available. There are also times when I use the highest gear combination, although this is rarer.

My current 3 x 10 is 24/32/42 and 11-36 the likely replacement would be 26/38 and 11-36. So to me that means I will be missing out on both lower end and top end surely?

The other dumb questions is, I assume the chainset is 2 ring specific, along with the shifters, meaning I would have to buy new of both to go back to 3 x 10?

Bump !

i’m running a 2×10 with 28-40 on my 575. I love it, a really nice spread of gears and never feel like i’m short on gears at either end of the range.

give it a go before you consider changing it, you’ll probably be fine with it.

Dave

Hi
I have a Tek Superfly with 2×10 and dont notice the difference.
Its never stopped me getting up a hill that my legs can manage anyway if that makes sense!!!
Also rode a Cotic Rocket on a demo day with 2×10 and got up Fremington Edge at Reeth and the Rocket is a bit heavier than the Trek.
Also not super fit but ride regularly.
I like it and am thinking about fitting to other bikes when replacement comes along.
I think sometimes I ride in a lower gear than I actually need because its there and if its not I just deal with it.
Cheers
Steve

There are plenty of low gears available, I chopped a couple off the top that I barely used anyway. I’ll spin out on the fastest flattest trails or road but don’t care.

re kit (I’m pretty sure that):
* your rear shifter and mech don’t care if you’re on 3x or 2x, it’s the same cassette after all
* you can use a medium cage rear mech for 2x but not 3x, but a long cage will work with either
* front mech and shifter work the same too because the gap between the chainrings is the same on 3x and 2x – so your shifter is capable of 2 clicks but you only use one, and you set the stop screws on the front mech as appropriate. Hmmm perhaps the shifter window would be wrong but I run SRAM and don’t have them so don’t care.
* cranks are 2x specific yes, the chainrings are in a different place to 3x

What did you use your big ring for? All I ever did was put the chain on it on descents to stop it falling off because it had tobe long enough to go on the big ring.

Don’t buy cranks with 120mm BCD it’s near impossible to get new chainrings.

if you’re getting the new xt shifters, the left (front) shifter has a selector switch to swap between double and triple ‘mode’.

Dave

My current 3 x 10 is 24/32/42 and 11-36 the likely replacement would be 26/38 and 11-36.

Going from a 24T inner ring to a 26T inner ring will make the lowest gear on your cassette ‘feel’ approx half-a-gear higher if that makes sense.

So your new lowest gear will feel like it’s somewhere between your old lowest gear and second lowest gear

HTH

Thanks for the info, thats exactly the advice I was looking for. It sounds like the gearing will be good at the low end as the lowest granny often feels too low to be 100% useful.

It can be quite easy to use the top end gear on fireroad decents, but as I said that isn’t that frequent, but I don’t want to get in many situations where I am regretting missing gears!

I didnt think the chainset would be 3 x compatible, but just wanted to check, I bet 2 x means 2 x the cost too ?!?! less is more and all that 🙁

Overall I shouldn’t think you’ll miss the spread of gears much but it might take a bit of getting used to the jump between 26 to 38 when shifting up front. I am a dedicated unfollower of fashion & have kept a triple on my road bike for this very reason.

I didnt think the chainset would be 3 x compatible, but just wanted to check, I bet 2 x means 2 x the cost too ?!?! less is more and all that

Nope, I just bough 2x XT stuff and it was all cheeper than 3x appart from the shifter which was the same price. Bessides, for the OP that would be a happy thing as he’s got 2x.

Follow up question:
Are 2x rings more robust (for marathons etc) than 3x rings?
i.e. are they less likely to develop shifting problems?

That would be more down to your setup / maintenance than anything else. The rings are the same IIRC. The majority of the shifting is done on the cassette, so I can’t see how losing a ring will make much difference in that respect.

If I had a choice of starting again (my bikes are normally a trigger’s broom of constant evolution) I’d go 2X10 every time (from current 3X9)after riding it on a week long demo bike and loving it. The switch between the two rings seem to come at a more intuitive point in the gear range and I didn’t miss the little bit of bottom end and bit more top end you don’t get.

I noticed going from 3 x 9 to 3 x 10 that the chain line became quite extreme in gears that I would expect to use, and it was almost impossible not to get some rubbing on the front mech, even when being sensible not to use the gears at silly extremes. SO therefore I would say 3 x 10 would wear stuff out much quicker, and be more likely to cause shifting problems.

Having said that 3 x 10 worked faultlessly in the extreme mud of Mountain Mayhem

Thought the overall width of the cassette and cranks (inner to out chainring) was the same on 3×10, just the cassette spacing was less. So in theory the chainline would be the same at the extremes?

So in theory the chainline would be the same at the extremes?

I believe ‘chainline’ has 2 definitions. 1 is the mid-point of the chainrings (the mid-ring for a triple, midpoint between the 2 for a double), and the other is the actual route of the chain on any given combo of chainring/cassette sprocket.

Since double chainrings are closer to the centre point, at the cassette extremes the chain is more angled than in the big or little rings of a triple.

I don’t totally buy that it’s wise to use all 10 gears in each ring on a 2×10. I have broken chains several times and am trying to figure out why.

I ride in the Lakes a lot and I can’t see 2 x 10 appealing to me in any/way/shape/form.

“So in theory the chainline would be the same at the extremes?”

If I’m honest not too sure, but I know since going 3 x 10 that the front mech always ends up slightly rubbing very slightly on the chain no matter how carefully I set it up, and the chain line does look at quite an angle. I apprecaite though that the total rear block size may well actually be no different.

“I ride in the Lakes a lot and I can’t see 2 x 10 appealing to me in any/way/shape/form.”

That is my concern from riding in hilly areas, but if I’m only loosing half a gear ^ as quoted above (damn you if your wrong !!) then I actually dont see that as an issue as my current lowest is almost too low.

http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/

Got the new bike, and had my first ride on Sunday evening.

I loved 2 x 10 🙂

Most of the time you just feel like your in the most efficient cadence for the trail.

The biggest positive for me though was climbing. I was dreading not having enough gears, but the reality was that it actually made me quicker up hills! I found that technical climbs were easier because your were not either spinning away in the granny and at some point in the pedal stroke having slack chain. Neither was I having to push to hard in the middle ring. I can’t see that climbs in the Lakes etc would be any different.

The only thing I did find myself doing was staying in either front ring too long with a large gear at the back meaning a big jump to the next gear, but that will get better with experience.

The only other negative I can think of is that both front rings will wear out, where as previously it always used to be the middle ring.

I would never go back to 3 x 10 now though