have seen a fair few people on here with 1×11,just wondering what the advantages are (i currently run 2×10 on my duster).

No front Mech, one less shifter on the bars, lighter?

1. about 500g off for ‘slightly’ less range.
2. less stuff on your bars.

You can run a single-ring chain device, DH ring or narrow-wide ring to virtually eliminate dropped chains.

I’m currently running 1×10 on a narrow-wide ring with a “stealth” granny for monster climbs. No front mech or shifter, just drop the chain onto it by hand when you know you’re going to be slogging your way up a monster.

It’s one more

It’s very trendy

It’s 9 (or 19) less.

It’s 9 (or 19) less.

Or ten more 😀

The biggest “advantage” for me, the one i found the most surprising was just how it “simplifies” trail riding. Just one lever to press, no front ring to worry about / choose. I know that sounds odd, and i thought i might miss the ability to suddenly downshift a large ratio jump, like you could do with a 3x or 3x setup, but no, i just love riding, and not having to think about gears really!

If using a sram cassette you get a much bigger range than 1×10 or 1×9. Really nice not having a feont mech. I went from 2×9 to 1×11 and not needed any more gears even on steep climbs and roads. I use to swear by shimano and not look at sram. Now ive tried it I’m sticking with sram.

It’s great for the mechanically inept who, apparently, struggle to set up a front mech.

It’s easier to select the right gear for whatever situation, unexpected steep climb etc, no horrible grinding sound when you try to move too many gears at the same time.

What maxtorque said. Gears aren’t complicated but simplifying them does gives one less thing to consider when riding.

I like how quiet it runs.

11 gears, instead of 20 on a double, with a 70% overlap between the two tens

Sorry to disagree folkes but I tried a steep grassy climb (up Hareden Fell in the Trough of Bowland if anyone has done it) on my friends Capra. The Capra climbed the tricky muddy stuff better than my beloved Whyte XT120, but once it got really steep it needed that granny ring, and the Whyte kept going. The Capra would have been brilliant with a granny. I do however prefer going uphill rather than down.

Surely that depends on ratios. My 1×10 has pretty much the same bottom gear as my old 3×9

The biggest “advantage” for me, the one i found the most surprising was just how it “simplifies” trail riding. Just one lever to press, no front ring to worry about / choose. I know that sounds odd, and i thought i might miss the ability to suddenly downshift a large ratio jump, like you could do with a 3x or 3x setup, but no, i just love riding, and not having to think about gears really!

+1, find it really easy and freed up a nice space on my bars for my reverb.

1×10 on mine but I’d echo the comments about simplicity.

On the downside, the steps between gears are a bit larger (than my previous 11-32 9 speed) which is noticeable imo, mine’s a 1×10 with an 11-40T so it would be less so on a 1×11 with same range.

Happy I swapped but I did the relatively cheapo bodge with an expander ring. Still a couple of hundred though.

The steps on a 1×10 are the same as you’d be running the same cassette on a 2x or 2x set up.
1×11 Sram has big gaps, which is one of the reasons Shimano have a tighter spread on their 11 spd cassettes.

Just simplification. With a typical 2×10 set up you’ve actually only got about 12 – 14 gears anyway as there is duplication of ratio’s on each chainring (near as to make no difference), so you’re already almost there, so why carry all the additional superfluous metalwork around with you?

1 by 10 for me at the moment. I will probably go xt 1by11 as I basically need to replace my entire groupset and it’s cheaper to do that than buy a cassette and an expander. I love the simplicity, the lack of cleaning caked mud from around the front derailleur and the weight saving.

For an 11-42 range do people typically sacrifice the high or low gears? I’m currently running a 34t front (27.5 wheel) but thinking of going 36t when I replace chainring.

Nickjb; pretty much doesn’t quite cut it sometimes 🙂

34 x 11-42 here, no issues with spinning out and it’s a nice low gear.

Recently changed from 34 x 11-36 10 speed and the extra low gears are nice.

GB

ferrals- I matched (as closely as I realistically could) the low end at the cost of a couple of top end ratios.

1st gear on my 1×10 (32T/40T) is about 9% higher than my 3×9 first gear (22/32) but is manageable for me.

1st gear for me is 32 x 36 (26″). If I can’t cycle up with that ratio I’m quicker walking.

Massively mediocre rider, cheers, that’s What I did initially, but I spin out at times, guess I’ll give a 36t a go and if it’s to hard go back to 34t.

1x whether 10 or 11, the overwhelming advantage is binning the front mech. Worst design ever. Brute force method of shifting and frequently the cause of chain jam, drop, and gouges in frames, especially carbon.

Going 2×10 to 1x, well I went to 1×10 and using Sheldon Brown’s gear ratio tool I worked out I’d basically lose two gears top and bottom, and generally I wasn’t using them so I’d cope. 1×11 is just one extra cog, so you’d lose slightly less.

I suggest playing with Sheldon’s gear ratio tool and see what different it makes.

It`s for people who like a limited range and have only one thumb and lack the ability to set up a front mech

1st gear for me is 32 x 36 (26″). If I can’t cycle up with that ratio I’m quicker walking.

You must have an amazingly low cadence. 1st gear for me is 22 x 36 (26″) and that’s still quicker than walking.

ferrals- no problem, hope the bigger gear suits you nicely.

You must have an amazingly low cadence. 1st gear for me is 22 x 36 (26″) and that’s still quicker than walking.

22×36 @90rpm is ~4mph so comparable to, maybe a smidge over walking, and 90rpm is not that fast of a cadence especially off road

same speed on 32×36 would be ~60rpm which although slower is not that slow for grinding up a hill

Simplicity, reliability, as many gears as you actually need offroad and it doesn’t half make the bike a lot quieter!

Downsides? Cost is the obvious one, but the trickle down is slowly trickling down… The only other one I can think of is that chainring size becomes a very important decision to make, and us 1×11 riders seem to obsess over chainring size almost as much as the Singlespeed riders what ratio they are running! With a 3×10 setup, everybody has got gears they don’t use, be they at the top or the bottom of the range, and in a 2×10 setup pretty much everybody has got a gear they hardly use. 1×11 takes that gear away, so chainring size becomes a much more crucial part to the setup.

The only thing that would tempt me to go back to a 2x setup up front on an MTB would be the need for REALLY low gears if say I was doing some enormous climbs, and/or solo endurance events. But that said, I’d probably just bung a silly small 26 or 28 T chainring on a 1×11 and freewheel down the descents a little more, it seemed to work OK for Aaron Gwin at least!

I’ve been using 1×10 (with Hope expander and a 32 tooth chainring) but considering going back to 2×10. It’s probably psychological as much as anything, but I do miss that granny ring.

Lighter
Simpler
Easier to keep clean
Better chain retention (with narrow wide ring)
Looks neater both around the BB and on the bars (subjective I guess)
You don’t have to think about changing front sprockets before a climb
It puts a nail in the coffin of hateful front derailleurs

I like it. I was running 1×10 before I got 1×11 and most of the downsides of 1×10 (No ‘bailout’ gear, non-OEM) are gone. It’s the future, and the sooner the folks at Shimano realise this, the sooner SRAM will get some competition and prices will fall.

Worth comparing the numbers to see what you actually get.
SRAM 10-42 big range, with some big steps but covers all bar 2 gears of a 2×10 set-up.
11-40/42 quite a bit less, but closer gaps.

So for the range I can see how the SRAM is popular. I have 11-40/42 on a 10sp setup, the gaps are fine for me and it’s good rather than great. I’ll be upgrading to the SRAM version when I can. Mostly for the grip shift and range.

Worth comparing the numbers to see what you actually get.

You’re not from around these parts are you, bringing facts to an argument! Tsk tsk 🙄

😆

Sory, couldn’t resist…

Looking at your chart there, you really are only losing one, maybe 1 and a bit gears by going with a SRAM 10-42 cassette over a 2×10 setup. The 24/38 chainring setups are more common now, but provide a BIG jump. I was using 24/36 before myself which was much smoother. With a 24/36 and an 11-36 cassette, I was getting 490% range, to narrow it down to 420% range really doesn’t feel like a big trade off at all. My 1st gear is ever so slightly taller (more like 1st and a half if you like) with a 30T and 10-42 setup, and my top gear is 3:1 which is exactly the same as the 36T and 9th cog (out of 10) on the back gave me previously. So I have to push the tiniest bit harder up very steep climbs as my bailout gear isn’t quite as low as it was, and I run out of puff before 30mph on the roads/fireroads… I’ll live with that for the simplicity it brings!

it means you’re about 4 down-shifts from the gear you want in a hurry. Vs 1shift with a front mech.

ahwiles – Member

it means you’re about 4 down-shifts from the gear you want in a hurry. Vs 1shift with a front mech.

But that’s OK, because modern gears shift so fast and so well, the time taken to go down 4 gears on the cassette is close to identical. Unless of course you don’t want the gear that a front downshift gives you, in which case you’re doing recovery shifts and it’s slower.

TBH for me the biggest differences are chain retention, mud, and chain retention in mud. The third especially can be a big deal on some bikes, front mech can be a real choke spot so removing it helps mud fall away and takes away one place that it gets rammed into the drivetrain.

I did like 2×9 though, some part of me things that 18 is the correct number of gears for a bike.

@mboy mentions solo endurance events. I did the Yorkshire Dales 300 last weekend on a 1×10 setup on a 29er. I’ve a 32T chain ring, just changed it from a 30T the week before as the 30T had worn out and I could only get a 32T in the local shops, the cassette is the usual 11-36 with 40T extender. I didn’t have much problem with gearing, well beyond feeling knackered on the later climbs!

Quite a few of the riders were on 1x setups, including the first back, so it’s not that unusual. I don’t recall seeing any 3x setups, the remainder were 2x or singlespeed.