Speed Date – OneUp Components 42t Sprocket

The OneUp Components 42 tooth sprocket promises to be the ‘$100 XX1 replacement’, so how does it measure up?

By adding the sprocket you can extend a standard 10 speed cassette to 11-42 which goes a little more gear range for the 1×10 rider; a useful addition for hilly areas or big days out where that extra ratio can be a make or walk difference.

Adding the sprocket is a simple process.

Here’s how we went about fitting it.

First take an 11×36 10sp cassette, grab your favourite tools and whip it off.

The OneUp sprocket is marked on either side to let you know where to place the included spacer dependent on wether you’re adapting a SRAM or Shimano cassette.

Once you’ve sorted that, start adding the cassette components.

OneUP recommend removal of the 17 tooth sprocket to make space, given our local riding it seemed to make more sense to drop the 15.

Once that’s out of the way, finish rebuilding the cassette.

And get the lock ring cranked up.

Obviously adding the larger sprocket is going to require a couple more links in your existing chain. We took the opportunity to put on a new one so took the old one off.

A quick check with the new chain to get the length sorted.

Then it was time to join up the new chain and start tweaking the rear derailleur.

It’s time to start adjusting the rear derailleur, so grab a philips screwdriver and get to work.

In order to get enough adjustment we unscrewed the b-tension screw completely to remove the small plastic spacer, then refitted it and screwed it nearly all the way in to get enough clearance for the 42 tooth sprocket.

Lastly a quick run through the gears to check everything is running sweet and it’s time to hit the trails.

So how is it?

The Speed Date

Two rides in what are my first impressions of the OneUp Components 42 tooth sprocket?

I chose two deliberately steep and climb rich routes to try and get the most out of it, deliberately changing gear late and under full pedalling load. Basically everything I could to make the shift as hard as possible.

The shifting up into the big gear was impressively smooth for an add-on and hard to differentiate from shifts further down the block. The jump from 36 up to 42 worked well too, without any obvious sudden jump in cadence, all in all very progressive. Shifts down were slightly more clunky, especially dropping the chain down a cog during climbing, but it was in no way a problem.

Losing the 15 tooth sprocket was hardly noticeable and works well for me on local trails where there’s a fair element of winch and plummet and little in the way of contouring.

So far it seems a relatively cheap option to get a wider set of ratios for 1×10 users. Next step is to find out how it lasts over the longer term.

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Dave Anderson

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