Just building up my FTM Carbon and have bought a RF N/W 32t chainring to go on a XT785 triple chainset (bought solely for the purpose of going 1×10 on account of having a more natural chainline than the 2×10 item and also being much much lighter than the perhaps more obvious Zee item).

I’m not massively taken with the white laser-etched Raceface ‘scrawl’ on one side of the chainring so am planning to run it the other way round. I can see absolutely no reason why this should not be possible as the ring is not aysmmetric or orientated any particular way.

Has anyone else done this?

Yep, my friend and I run ours backwards – him because he doesn’t like the scrawl and me because my bolts where too long and they only worked with it backwards, another friend runs his the correct (!) way.

None of us noticed any lack of performance (i.e. chain doesn’t fall off)

Does that make them Wide Narrow rings then?

My chain actually fell of the other day – first time since i fitted the narrow/wide jobbie in early September

But then again, that’s what the mighty Swinley does to a bike! 🙂

I run mine wrong way rounf for the same reason as timbo. Too tight for short bolts. Not had any issues

re. the bolts… does that mean that the ring is actually orientated?

i bought a set of single ring chainring bolts to use. should i be using the ring the other way round then to ensure they fit more fully?

hmmm i was running mine with the NON GRAFITTI side, but i was told it would possibly affect the chainline, as one side is flat and the other has indents where the bolts go?

I haven’t seen the RF ring up close but all of the others I’ve seen would give a different chainline depending which way around it is.

You also lose the support of the indents of the ring against the chainring tab which might mean a bolt it more likely to shear if you catch the ring on something but I’ve no idea if this makes a difference in reality!

The easy answer is don’t buy a ring with daft graphics 😀

Yeah the graffiti side is idented. As i didnt have time to get new bolts. I stuck it on wrong way round. It worked spot on so never got round to changing it and getting shorted bolts. I cant see me hitting it in the wrong orientation will really do much damage. To hit it that hard to shear something other things are gonna be broken.

Logo side out as it’s a 30T with spacers built in